Chatterbox is a Godsend for a Spy
by UrieNanashi
Summary: In the year after Sovokia, while the world around them spins closer toward Civil War, Darcy Lewis meets the Black Widow for the first time twice- possibly three times. (In which Tony doesn't have a backup A.I., The team is a fracturing, and Darcy's natural instinct is to throw food and yarn at the problem. And it sort of works.)
1. Prologue

(Болту́н — нахо́дка для шпио́на.)

 **Prologue** :

The first time Darcy Lewis meets the Black Widow is actually the second. For bragging purposes Darcy totally counted that ceremonial re-opening party of the new Avengers facility as the first time she met 'The Avengers'. Discounting her alien prince BFF Thor, of course.

Following the mayhem in London she and Jane, fueled by a flooding of grants and Thor's global popularity, had bounced around the world. They went south for a while, spending brief stints in Argentina, New Zealand, and South Africa. Eventually however the time Thor was able to spend with them began to lessen as he jumped back and forth from Asguard to Earth in the search of Loki's evil glow stick. After several fruitless expeditions south Jane turned her ambitions northward. They were freezing their asses off in Qaanaaq Greenland when news of an evil robot army hit the air waves. Thor disappeared again and then Sokovia happened.

Suddenly people's good will wasn't quite what it once was and the grant money began to stretch thin. It was all kinds of shitty. So Jane had finally caved and accepted the offered position with the Avengers that had been standing since the Battle of New York. (Although truth be told it was a little difficult for Darcy to tell whether they really worked directly for the Avengers or for Stark Industries). And because Jane was a badass, one for her many conditions of acceptance was the inclusion if her 'intern' and Darcy had gotten to hitch a ride along.

They had both been guests of honor (Jane more so then Darcy) at the grand re-opening of the Avengers Facility following the disaster in Sokovia.

It had been a marvelous day. In an effort to generate good press, the opening had been turned into something of a gala and a good portion of the guests had been journalists. The night had had more speeches then a college graduation but the tons of good food and music evened the deal in Darcy's mind.

The group of heroes had had a table all to themselves right by the front of the stage for maximum exposure. She and Jane had been seated only a few tables back, right in-between the general science pawns and the actually important people. From her seat Darcy could see the back of Black Widows head.

Darcy, like the rest of the world, had seen the crazy footage of The Battle of New York. It would have been impossible not to -even for someone without her interest in political science. Unlike the rest of the world however Darcy was aware of a certain secret government agency that really liked to record and take stuff that didn't belong to them. And a little prime hacking had gotten her access to extra footage that hadn't been released to the general public. A lot of that classified stuff had been footage of the two supposed super spies. The two the media had dubbed the 'Black Widow' and 'Hawkeye'.

She remembered distinctly sitting at her laptop in New Mexico, the poor ac buzzing in a strenuous effort to keep the room cool, and watching the grainy footage of a tiny blood red haired woman tasering the crap out of aliens. Darcy had been suitably beguiled.

Being literal feet away from the woman was mindboggling. If Thor had been there she totally would have used him to get an autograph. As he was back in Asguard for the moment, the traitor, she had had to think of another way to get close to the table.

In a spur of pure genius, Darcy had weaved between tables in a complicated pattern that took her right by their table, which had given her the chance to give a head-nod of acknowledgement in the team's general direction as she made her way to the buffet for a second helping. And that totally counted as a greeting in her book. Completely.

So for bragging purposes was concerned Darcy always said that she has met all of the Avengers before.

After moving in to the compound however, she had been surprised to actually have real run-ins with members of the team. She'd given The Vision a cup of jasmine tea once, delivered a piece of mixed up mail to War Machine. Captain America nodded at her when they pass in the halls so she was pretty sure he knew she worked there and The Scarlet Witch had once complimented her double chocolate chip cookies. And one time she dragged a half-dead with sleep deprivation Tony Stark to the couch when she found him looking sad and lost and swaying on his feet in the common room. She didn't think he remembered that though.

The 'murder twins' as she sometimes referred to the spies in her head, had been curiously absent through it all. Darcy wasn't sure if it was because they weren't actually in the building or if the two were simply avoiding everyone (Darcy).

It was not until 2 months past moving in and renewing her contract with Jane that Darcy Lewis met the Black Widow for the second (first) time.

It basically happened like this-

* * *

So I know I haven't written anything in a long time. And I'm sorry. What I thought I was going to do was take a break from 'Paperwork' and do a nice little one-shot. Something that I could easily handle and start and finish. So I started writing. and it kept going and getting bigger and bigger. But I'm done. I have this entire thing completed. It will be eight chapters- plus this prologue. And now that it's done maybe I can finally get back to my other fic.

This is being cross-posted on AO3 as well. My user name of there is also UrieNanashi.

Come see my on Tumblr- Nothing-suspicious-at-all


	2. Chapter 1

Darcy had never been one to be bound by fictitious standards of appropriate time designations for consumption when it came to food. Plus she worked for Jane and that meant her body schedule was more than a little out of whack (basically, time had ceased to have meaning at all).

So she when she walked into the kitchen at 2:43 in the afternoon on Wednesday she expected it to be empty.

She turned the corner and- there she was.

The Black Widow.

The tiny, deadly, beautiful Black Widow was seated at the large island with a mug and a book in what appeared to be Russian. The woman's dark magnetic eyes flickered to her then back to her book. Darcy consciously maintained trajectory and headed for the fridge. She opened the door and stared in. Bottles of condiments. She blinked.

And she had completely forgotten what she had come in here for.

Darcy closed the fridge and went for the cabinet. Inside were green ceramic plates.

Dammit.

This wasn't the kitchen she normally used but Jane had dragged half of their new lab supplies to a different side of the building last night and this one was now closer than the old kitchen.

Darcy tried another cabinet further down but this one was full of serving plates and mixing bowls. Where the hell was the food in this damn kitchen? Closing the cabinet, she sighed and turned to beg for help. Not at all the cool introduction she had been hoping to make but what could you do?

When she turned back around the room was empty though. An empty mug in the sink and the Black Widow gone.

' _Okay'_ , Darcy thought, ' _that was cool_.'

-….-….-…-

Surviving an encounter with the black widow felt pretty amazing despite Darcy's poor showing. She hadn't even introduced herself! God damn idiot she was sometimes. Her brain was still generating nature documentary parodies about the encounter the next day when she called the elevator she needed to reach Jane's lab. She absentmindedly adjusted the beanie on her head, tucking in a few stay hairs. She clicked the down button again.

At last the doors opened and she ambled in and swiped her ID card to choose her floor. As the doors began to slide closed a man with short blonde hair and huge arms pelted toward the opening, just managing to sneak in before they shut entirely.

She glanced sideways at him as he swiped his card and selected a floor several down from the labs. She knew that face from somewhere.

He was so familiar.

Blond hair and blue eyed but he was definitely shorter then Captain America. As they began to move down, she licked her lips, casting her mind about. Hawkeye, she realized sharply, going through a mental list of Avengers. She was standing in an elevator with secret agent superhero expert marksman Hawkeye. Holy shit. Her fingers fiddled excitedly with her ID. She shouldn't even be freaking out really because this crazy awesome fucking bizarre, slightly terrifying type of thing was exactly the sort of thing that had become the new standard in her life really.

She glanced at him.

Oh.

Darcy glanced sideways at him again.

Oh man.

She glanced at his arms and he shifted, casually crossing them over his chest.

' _Dammit, woman up Lewis_.'

"Dude," she said turning to face the former assassin.

He was smirking slightly at her, leaning back on the side of the elevator. "Yeah- I'm Hawkeye." He told her with a cocky grin.

"No dude. I know that. It's just…" Her eyes fell to his incredibly muscular biceps. "You've got like black grease or something all over the back of your arm."

He blinked at her, following her line of sight as he twisted his arm around. "Wha-, oh. Shit."

He seemed to forget about her for the moment as he scrubbed a little helplessly at his forearm. The doors dinged open to the lab floor and Darcy ducked out. The crazy assassin dude paid her no mind, muttering about vents and Tony Stark.

"It was nice to meet you hawk-guy!"

"Its Hawkeye!" he yelled as the doors closed.

-….-….-…-

Two weeks later at 1:45 a.m. Darcy needed lunch. Darcy had pretty much surrendered to the idea that working for Jane basically meant becoming nocturnal for monthly periods. Especially when Jane went on of one of her science binges, it became impossible to reason her into anything resembling a normal sleep schedule. During those times Darcy had to be satisfied stuffing food into Jane when she could and desperately riding out the crazy.

She walked into the dark kitchen with a softly grumbling stomach and behold- there were the deadly twins. They sat together hunched over the table slightly, looking exhausted and still dressed in combat gear. Both sets of eyes already pinned on her as she came around the corner. The Black Widow's catsuit zipper was down precariously low and they were both splattered with flecks of blood.

Yep, she was definitely interrupting.

"Oops. Ah, sorry. For interrupting your…whatever." ' _Evil council_?' "Ignore me. I'm not here. I'll be gone in like, 30 seconds."

The Black Widow's eyes darkened as she made to stand. Her partner's hand landed gently on her forearm to stop her and he eased himself back in his seat. The Widow sat again sharply. Scowling, the woman snapped something in Russian at him as Darcy made a desperate beeline for the easy-make microwave mac and cheese bowls.

Not exactly the food of champions but she take what she could get and get out of there fast.

As she pulled out the bowls and peeled off the plastic lids to begin filling them with water, the two spies continued to converse in low tones behind her. She was pretty sure they were switching languages between responses too. The hum of the microwave felt unnaturally loud in her ears when she hit start.

The Widow snarled something that sounded more like a growl then a word. Darcy had no idea what language they were speaking now but the conversation certainly didn't sound pleasant. She glanced back again at the two exhausted agents. Feeling awkward standing there and very self-conscious, Darcy made a quick decision and grabbed two big mugs from a cabinet.

The multilingual mutterings continued as she filled the mugs just passed the halfway with water. She popped the two mugs in the microwave beside the mac and cheese and grab the gallon of milk out of the fridge. From a drawer she grabbed a pair of spoons and then she found a box of pre-packaged hot cocoa mix because - _yes_.

Grabbing the hot mugs out of the microwave she plopped her whole haul before the two agents.

They broke off their angry mutterings to stare at her.

"I always find hot chocolate good for dealing with the crazies. Remus Lupin was dead on. Best medicine ever. 10 out of 10, would drink again. Also I know I interrupted your like whatever is happening here so- peace offering." She told them gesturing to the mugs lamely.

The Widows eyes took in the mugs and then slowly drew them up Darcy with a painfully kind and conciliatory smile across her lips. The crinkling around the woman's green eyes light and friendly. There was something chilling about it that sent terrified tingles down Darcy's spine. Like the woman was itching to stab her.

Adjusting her beanie with a hand she marched back to the microwave, retrieved her mac and cheese bowls and packets of undoubtedly fluorescent fake cheese, offered a fake salute and marched off toward the exit.

"Thanks, Lewis!" the archer called.

Darcy wasn't the type to pause because a super spy magically knew her name. Not any more, anyway. Frankly she was just happy for some levity to cut through the considerable tension running through her. So Instead of questioning it she just hollered back, "No problem Hawk-guy!" As she turned the corner, and wouldn't deny feeling generally badass about it.

Being in the same room as the Black Widow was cool but also kind of terrifying and Darcy was beginning to get the distinct impression that the woman maybe hated her.

-….-….-…-

Thankfully by Friday Jane had finally ran out of her science-steam and pretty much collapsed mid rant on the importance of ultra-high-energy particles. Whatever those were.

"Time for bed, Jane-y."

"Darcy, no." she argued a little hopelessly like Darcy was a particularly annoying dog.

Alright so maybe Jane wasn't quite out of steam yet but Darcy's patients had worn out.

Enough was enough.

"Jane, yes." She said, hands on her hips. "You haven't slept in a real bed in like, four days. We both need to shower, sleep, and eat something that isn't made entirely out of artificial preservatives."

Jane scrunched her nose in that way that meant that she knew Darcy was talking sense and just didn't want to admit it. Darcy held strong- carefully maintained the eye contact. She could show no weakness here. Jane hesitated; eyeing her work and sizing up Darcy. At Darcy's determined look her shoulders slumped and Darcy knew the battle was won. Herding her friend out of the lab she pat her reassuringly on the arm. "Don't worry boss lady, the sky will still be there when we get back."

Jane pouted unhappily but allowed herself to be dragged from the lab. "You don't know that" she grouched under her breath which Darcy happily ignored.

Darcy close the door to Jane's room after seeing the scientist safely inside and took off for her own room.

After a quick shower, Darcy changed into a pair of black sweatpants (her favorite pair because of the large pockets) and an overly large shirt from the Broadway production of Wicked. Feet stuffed into her fluffy socks, she grabbed her bag of knitting and made her way to one of the many living rooms in The Avengers facilities. The plush carpeting padded under her socked feet as she turned the corner to the 'blue living room' as it was so aptly named for its walls.

She blinked for a moment, taking in the unexpected scene she had managed to stumble upon.

The blackout curtains had been pulled down over the large windows, casting the room in a deep darkness. It may as well have been midnight. Crumpled on the far end of the white leather couch was Tony Stark. Hunched over, his hands covered his face, fingers gripping his hair.

Darcy hesitated at the entrance.

In Darcy's new reality she had come to accept being constantly surrounded by superheroes. They were amazing people and she respected and admired them all for a multitude of reasons. But she also knew that their lives, more often than not, tended to be pretty shitty. Messed up, crazy crap happened to them and she was seriously aware that it had to leave some intense and visceral scars.

Hugging her knitting bag to her chest she tentatively made her way into the room.

Just one of the many benefits that came from working in the Avenger circle was that the building was tricked out with what was essentially Netflix on crack. Meaning she had access to just about every movie ever made. Darcy decided to put it to good use now. It took her a moment, fiddling with four different remotes as Stark continued to breathe rigidly into the silence, but eventually Darcy managed to find and pull up 1998's direct-to-video musical 'Cats'.

Setting the volume low, she grabbed a couple of plush blankets from under the coffee table and sat gingerly beside Iron Man. She was close but hopefully not close enough to feel like she was overcrowding. As the play began Darcy wrapped one of the blankets around her lap and got her knitting ready. She was almost halfway through this plain-stitch red scarf.

Darcy cast another glance at Stark as the opening song began. His breathing was maybe slightly better but he had not yet removed his hands from his face.

Frowning slightly she unfold another of the soft blankets, this one white paisley, and slowly wrapped it around his shoulders. The muscles in his back rippled but he made no other move.

Emboldened by the lack of negative reaction Darcy picked up her knitting again and purposefully scooted herself just a little closer so that their sides lightly brush together. She kept her eyes on the TV and her knitting, but her focus on the tension that was ever so slowly bleeding out of Tony Stark. The music played on softly and by 'Rum Tum Tugger' he had removed his hands from his face and slunk back against the couch, eyes closed but clearly awake by the way his hands switched and fidgeted.

Darcy threw another blanket on him as the previous one had slipped from his shoulders and was pinned by his back. She shifted a little again, careful to keep her eyes on the dancing cats, until her arm leaned softly against him.

Slowly he began to lean on her too.

"Thanks, Lewis." He muttered thickly.

He sounded exhausted and incredibly uncomfortable. It was hard to believe this was the man she'd seen on T.V. schmoozing crowds of both celebrities and politicians. That man has been cocky and sharp, clad in flashing suits and cold polished shoes. Exuding a devil-may-care vibe that controlled every room he walked into. The man beside her was warn and pained, dressed in a tattered t-shirt with grease on his fingers. It was…surreal.

He shifted as though to stand so Darcy let herself fully lean against him and pulled her feet up beside her. Also, wow he knew her name. That was pretty cool.

"Wasn't ganna let you hog the couch, Stark." She said dismissively.

He snorted at that and settled a little uneasily back on the couch which she took as a positive sign.

"This musical sucks." He said after a moment.

"It does not." She said firmly.

"It's shit." He insisted.

"It's _the_ shit."

He laughed. Point for Darcy.

Just before the start of 'Mungo Jerrie and Rumpleteazer' his head thudded against her shoulder. Out like a light.

Darcy was feeling rather pleased with herself until she heard voices coming from around the corner. Twisting her head around, trying not to dislodge Iron Man from his position on her shoulder, she could see Hawkeye and Black Widow looming at the entranceway. The redhead had her arms crossed over her chest while Hawkeye looked at her. "Have you seen Star-"Hastily she put a finger to her lips and jerked her head meaningfully at her side. The Archer pushed forward into the room as the Widow trailed silently after like a perfectly polite murderous specter.

When the two came around the edge of the couch and saw Stark conked out, Hawkeye started to laugh. Quickly, Darcy took a free ball of yarn from her knitting bag and chucked it at his face. It hit his torso but whatever. She put a finger her to her lips insistently. He grinned at her and his right hand came up to sign 'Ok, ok'.

Darcy considered the two for a moment before gently putting her knitting down, careful not to drop any stitches, and clumsily signed back 'Sit?' nodding her head towards the TV.

'You know - - sign? Where -?' His fingers flew excitedly as his grin widened. The Black Widow hovered behind him, face disconcertingly neutral. 'Know little' she replied sloppily, able to guess the general gist of his question. Was Hawkeye Deaf? Hard of Hearing? She wondered. Or maybe he just knew sign. She imagined a silent language would be helpful for stealth missions.

He turned his partner fingers a blur and she though he must have switched out of ASL because she didn't recognize any of those signs. The Widow frowned and sign something back to which her partner shrugged and perched himself on the other end of the sofa.

Riveted Darcy watched the play-by-play:

The Widow frowned, Hawkeye smiled brightly, she raised an arched eyebrow, he wiggled back in into the cushions, she sighed but the corners of her mouth twitch and she smoothly sat herself in the plush armchair.

Action over, Darcy purposely turned her attention back to the musical. Her hands absentmindedly returned to their knitting. The gently clicking melding with the music.

'Cats' always brought her back to her childhood. Those sick days home from school when her mom had had to work and she would bundle up under her comforter, alone in the basement. Little Darcy had loved it so much, the catchy and occasionally gut-wrenching music performed by dancing cats. What more could a child want? For maybe a year after first seeing the video Little Darcy had given every cat she'd encountered a name from the play.

Older now, Darcy could see why it was the bane of musical theater performers the world over. It lacked any kind of cohesive plot and was basically a bunch of individual songs strung together by nonsense. That hadn't stopped little Darcy from loving it and it didn't stop older Darcy's nostalgia. By the time 'Memories' started she was fully engrossed. Even after years between viewings she still knew every word.

Remembering suddenly that she wasn't alone in the room, Darcy glanced over at the two agents. Tony Stark's breathing was still deep and slow beside her and her mind spent a brief moment to wonder at how similar he was to Jane- had to be a genius thing. Working yourself to the brink of nervous collapse.

Neither of the two agents were paying her any mind, their attentions held on the screen as Grizabella the glamour cat sang her absolute heart out. 'Touch me, it's so easy to leave me, all alone with my memory, of my days in the Sun…'

The Widows face had…, while not exactly softened, at least dropped the eerie blankness that had shrouded her previous expression. She seemed less tense and some powerful emotion lingered at the very corners of her mouth.

Looking at the woman, Darcy wondered suddenly if the Widow had ever had anything like those sick days…

'If you touch me you'll understand what happiness is. Look, a new day has begun…'

As the credits began to roll the two spies stood in perfect sync. Darcy twisted a little; the billionaire, playboy, philanthropist was cutting off the circulation in her arm.

'That was good' Hawkeye signed to her, fingers perfectly clear and concise. He glanced at the still sleeping Tony before shrugging. He shot a quick glance at Black Widow who nodded, then made his way out with a lazily signed 'later!' over his shoulder. Pausing in pursuit of her partner for just a moment, Black Widow stopped and gave her a short nod of acknowledgement.

Darcy barely managed to suppress her grin until she was alone with the sleeping genius. She could totally say she was friends with the Black Widow now. She couldn't wait to tell Jane.

Tony gave a soft snore from her numb shoulder.

Just as soon as she figured out a way to escape Iron Man.


	3. Chapter 2

After that first impromptu movie night, things changed around the Avengers facility. For one, Tony Stark began taking notice of her existence. He particularly seemed to enjoy calling her down to his workshop and ordering her to do menial tasks- like get him coffee. He had somehow managed to aquire her phone number and would text her repeatably until she managed to take a quick break from Jane and show up at his lab. Stepping into Tony Stark's lab for the first time was a memory she knew would be burned into her mind forever. The floors were a soft, almost padded, cement like base. The walls gleamed with bits of suspended Iron Man suits. Multicolored holograms spun slowly as rock music blasted from the walls. Tony, almost always up to his elbows in whatever he was tinkering with. Rather than take offense at the menial tasks he kept requesting of her, Darcy instead seized upon the opportunity. He would text her thirty times only for her to arrive and discover he wanted her to hand him a wrench- so she would hand him a hammer and walk away. Requests for coffee were equally fun- creating all manner of wild flavor combinations; some of which were probably not technically edible. ( _Edible_? _Drinkable_? _Whatever_.) And when he wasn't doing that, he'd take it upon himself to appear in Jane's lab; making snarky comments about Jane's handmade equipment which, although amusing, was probably not great for Jane's health.

The other change came from the Black Widow. It seemed Darcy had passed some test or another because the woman no longer disappeared on those rare instances they ended up in the kitchen together. Darcy would rate them as basically best friend's- meaning that the Russian no longer puffed up like an angry cat when she entered the room and was generally content to peaceably ignore her existence entirely.

The only way life could be better was if the multiple non-disclosure agreements her had signed would let her blog about it on Tumblr. Of course the NDA's hadn't stopped her from making an Avengers theme blog and promoting positive Avengers awareness anyway but that wasn't really the point. She could only dream the number of likes she'd get for being able to post actual interviews and behind the scenes photo's with the team.

"Boo!"

 _Damn it._ She'd definitely jumped.

Darcy looked up from the 265th page of Jane's latest report to glare at Tony. He leaned against her desk, smirking as he popped a blueberry in his mouth. Darcy had been in the middle of triple wielding highlighters to color coordinate the data reports and now she was tempted to take one and color the tip of his nose. "You threw off my grove, man."

"It's Iron Man actually. Emphasis on the _Iron_. Besides what are you even doing here? It's like 8 on Friday." He said like he himself wasn't infamous for spending entire weekends locked up in his workshop. Tony snatched a few pages of the report off the desk and flipping through it idly. "Gross. This is what we have computers for."

Darcy rolled her eyes and grab the pages back. "No, this is why Jane has me."

The man huffed rudely, "So skip out. And if she fires you then you can come work for me. Guarantee I pay better and, bonus, I won't make you miss your hot Friday night dates."

"Darcy doesn't date." Jane called from the top of one of her heavily modified telescopes.

That woman was a terror. When had she climbed up there? And why? Darcy might need to consider one of those child leashes. Or maybe some climbing helmets.

Tony spun around and gave Jane a disbelieving look. "Of course she dates."

Darcy felt a flash of indignant irritation. With long practice she pushed the feeling aside, she knew Tony didn't mean anything by it and she wasn't in any mood to play educator today. Instead Darcy just shook her head and said, "Nah man." He's eyes squinted at her suspiciously and she shrugged casually back. "Why do you care anyway, aren't you like- with Pepper Potts?"

The smile slipped a little on his cheeks. Something flashed across his eyes that made Darcy sure she must have miss-stepped somehow but the man shook whatever it was off quickly. "Not the point I was making, beanie baby! Get it? Cuz you wear beanies and are a _literal_ child." He said emphatically, pointing a finger at her.

Glad he was brushing aside whatever bomb she had unknowingly stepped on, Darcy allowed the change in subject with a dismissive toss of her hair. "Pretty sure that's just code for you being old, dude." He gaped dramatically at her, hand clutching his heart. She shrugged unconcernedly back at him. Darcy had worried the first few times she had rejected his demands she quit and go work for him that he might take offense. She needn't have bothered though. In fact, he seemed to grow more delighted the more she refused.

Behind him Jane began scuttling down from her telescope. (Darcy was definitely going to have to order some climbing helmets. She made a mental list to add that to her Amazon cart. ) Once her feet touched solid ground Jane marched over. Darcy didn't bother suppressing her smile. Jane had that possessive look in her eyes that had developed following their first run in with S.H.I.E.L.D. "Alright, what is the point of all this, Mr. Stark? Why are you harassing my intern?" she asked pointedly, taking a defensive position beside Darcy.

Darcy looked fondly over at her boss lady.

Jane was crazy, no denying that, but she was also basically a total sweetheart. "You don't want to irritate her, she's become a little trigger happy after Shield. She'll have Thor sic Mewmew on you." Darcy warned half seriously, giving Jane a bright smile.

"Oh please, I can totally take Fezzik." He said dismissively. "The bigger picture here is that we are all now late." He shrugged, blatantly tapping his worth-more-than-your-house watch.

Jane paused. "Late? Late for what?"

…and he totally had her.

"Movie night."

All three of them looked to the elevator door where the Falcon stood sheepishly with his hands in his pockets. "Sorry for interrupting but Natasha's getting impatient." He said rather ominously. Darcy wondered vaguely who 'Natasha' was for a moment. Also- what? There was a movie night? and she was invited?

Tony clapped his hands and made for the elevator. "You guys coming or what?"

Darcy looked at Jane. Jane looked at Darcy, then at her equipment. Darcy looked at Jane. Jane looked at Darcy. Jane sighed, hiding half a smile with a head shake. "Oh, why not."

"Yes!" Darcy exclaimed happily. She pulled Jane by the arm over toward the elevator and the two waiting Avengers. "So what are we watching?" she asked excitedly.

"Anybody want a peanut?" Tony smirked in an exaggeratedly deep voice.

"Yes! Love that movie! Westley is so hot!" Darcy grasped excitedly as the doors slid closed.

And thus with a viewing of The Princess Bride, the tradition of Friday movie nights with the Avengers began.

-….-….-…-

Kitchen run-ins with the Widow (occasionally accompanied by Hawkeye) continued as the days wore on with some arguable improvement. The female agent would perch at the marble island reading while Darcy padded around making lunches and snacks, often leaving the Widow offerings of warm tea and bowls of fresh fruit. Most days the woman would offer Darcy a vague and dismissive smile, then blatantly leave the offerings untouched as she finished reading a chapter in her latest book and stalked calmly out of the room. Which was kind of a bummer.

But Darcy had never been a quitter!

(Truthfully she had quit quite frequently until she met Jane. Then survival instincts had led her to cultivate her stubbornness into a formidable ally against the insanity of scientists.)

With bullheaded determination Darcy continued to offer the woman food (Since her brain seemed to forget how words worked while she was in the room with her.) Darcy would place her offerings before the superhero and bow slightly as she backed unobtrusively away.

And over time she successful began to notice a pattern.

The Black Widow was fond of sweets. Anything marshmallow or meringue-like in particular. Those offerings tend to go over better. (One time Darcy experiments by purposefully not clearing away the rejected offering of extra marshmallow rice crispy treats and found one gone by the time she returned to the kitchen to check in. She was almost 75% certain it was Widow who took it. Plus it was only after that incident that the Black Widow began to actually occasional accept the things Darcy made for her.)

She also began to pick up on 'bad days'.

Days when the pressure in the room would build and build, like a constant crescendo of warning buzzing ominously through the air. On those days, the red haired woman would pin her with a cold stare that clashed horrifically with a knowing smile and the flashing of teeth. Darcy had never known a glare to bother her but there was something...terrifying lurking behind those eyes. A black void of darkness that waited patiently for the opportunity to utterly destroy it's prey. Darcy was very careful on those days. She moved a little slower, was extra careful not to push or crowd, and forcibly kept herself from running when she left. That was a thing, right? 'Only prey runs', or something like that.

On good days the feel of the whole room would be different. The air more free and light. And the Widow would be there in her seat at all random hours of the day, Hawkeye occasionally glued to her side, and Darcy's presents would be greeted with grimaced suspicious smiles (a half amused half disgruntled Hawkeye complaining good naturally about his lack of deity-ship worship) and the occasionally sharply offered "Spasibo."

It gave one the feeling not dissimilar to when a cat designed to put its paw on your hand.

Therefore, when Darcy strolled into the kitchen one night to find the other woman sitting in at the island in the dark, it was nothing too unusual.

Except that she was dressed in what appeared to be in incredibly expensive evening gown. Black low-cut silk with rhinestones around the hem, and notably, ripped in several places. Darcy could see hints of bandages peeking through several tears in the rich fabric.

On the marble island sat a pair of matte-black hand guns.

The Widow did not look up at her entrance.

She had her eyes fixed on the guns with a dark hallow look etched into her face. Her burning red hair was tussled in wild curly disarray. The woman sat so still she didn't appear to be breathing- she could have been nothing more than shadow.

Darcy rocked back on her feet and wondered why she seemed to find herself in these situations.

As with Iron Man, she hesitated for a good few moments; unsure if her usual brand of brashness would be welcome here. But well, it had turned out better then expected last time she had attempted to help a superhero. So whatever.

Leaving the lights off, Darcy went to the cabinet and grabbed a large mug. Then she scrounged around for the necessary butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, flour, and the half eaten bag of chocolate chips. She melted the butter for a few seconds then mixed in the rest of the ingredients. Darcy set the mug back in the microwave for another two minuets, feeling the Widows gaze on her back. Determinedly, she ignored the somewhat hostile feeling stare and poured a glass of milk and grabbed a spoon for good measure as the microwave dinged.

As she turned to present her infamous cookie-in-a-mug, she found the Black Widow watching her with a tired but contemplative look.

Darcy bit her lip and placed the mug and the glass of milk down before the hero. "Hi. Here, this is for you. Obviously. I mean, if you like cookies. And who doesn't like cookies? I'm Darcy, by the way. This is a little weird because like we've met before but never really introduced ourselves."

The Widow tilted her head gently, red hair falling over her shoulder. A small smile crept across her haunted face- it looked just the same as the last smile The Widow had given her. The light crinkles around the eyes entirely identical. Only this felt...different. There was a conspicuous lack of buzzing in the air. "I know. Natasha Ronanoff." She nodded at the mug, "Thank you."

"Oh yeah, sure, no problem! I do it for Jane all the time…I'll just leave you to it cuz I honestly cannot remember what I came in here for."

Still smiling slightly the Widow picked up the spoon and twirled it deftly between her thin fingers. The long nails were painted a glossy black and not one was chipped. If that wasn't proof of divinity Darcy didn't know what was. "Let me know how you like it." Darcy called, looking back as she made her slow and steady retreat.

Rational thought was starting to catch up with her. Natasha. 'Natasha' was The Black Widow's name. How fucking cool was that? _Natasha Romanoff_.

Natasha rested her head on a fist, eyeing the mug full of cookie. "I will."

Darcy fled to the elevator.

 _Mark that one down as a success_ , she thought.

As the metal doors slid closed a memory from her tour of the facility sprung to the forefront of her mind and she impulsively hit the button for the top floors.

Darcy stepped out on to the empty hall.

Taking a wild guess she walked down the corridor and knocked on the room to the right. When she received no answer she moved to the next door. On her third try a bleary eyed Hawkeye answered. His hair was a ruffled nest of tangled locks and he was dressed in a pair of Hawkeye Avengers brand brief which would have been hilarious if it weren't for the cold squint his metallic grey eyes pinned on her.

Apparently a sleepy Hawkeye was a grumpy (deadly) Hawkeye.

"Your partner is down stairs in the green tile kitchen and could probably use you there. Like, I gave her a cookie but you should probably drag her to the gym or do whatever you crazy people do after a shitty mission."

Hawkeye blinked slowly and disappeared from the door. He returned before Darcy could decide if that was supposed to be a dismissal with a huge bottle of vodka in his hand.

"Oh, yeah. That would work too." Darcy approved emphatically. Ignoring her, Hawkeye stepped out and locked his door, leading the way back to the elevator in silence. She felt a little bad for waking him, watching him blink wearily during their quiet decent. They reached Darcy's stop first and Hawkeye seemed slightly more alert as she excited the elevator.

"Thanks for gett'in me, Lewis." She caught him say as the doors slid closed.

Was that a southern drawl? …weird.

With a shrug she headed down the hall to unlock her door. Darcy had plans for some alone time with herself and then she was going to pass the fuck out.

-….-….-…-

Natasha heard Clint coming long before she saw him turn the corner.

The soft even steps of one used to making only the quietest whisper of sound. She knew them because they were the same. Because she and Clint both had those footsteps. Although, with her specialized training and heightened hearing, even Clint Barton had trouble sneaking up on the Black Widow.

(Except for that one time in Venice that she would never admit to.)

She didn't bother to turn and greet him upon his arrival, opting instead for another spoon full of soft delicious cookie.

Natasha was both surprised and entirely unsurprised that he would find her here. On the one hand, it was not unusual at all for Clint to check in on her after a difficult mission. On the other, she knew for a fact that he himself had just gotten back from Nigeria and Clint tended to crash after missions like that for at least 48 hours. Perhaps his 'retirement' was going him some good after all- allowing him to bounce back quicker than he had before. (Retirement meaning that he was running half as many missions as he used to. No spy ever truly retired until they were dead- sometimes not even then.)

The man staggered into sight, a familiar bottle clutched loosely in one hand, and went straight for the shot glasses. Not batting an eye at the sight of her torn dress he grabbed two glasses and splashed a liberal amount of clear Russian imported vodka into both, then pushed one across the island marble to her. Natasha picked it up with nimble fingers and the two toasted with a wordless clink.

Although, Natasha realized, it had been a while since they had last done this.

Clint was splitting his time between Laura and the kids and hunting down their former colleagues. He was taking shorter assassination missions. Jobs where he could go in, get it done, and get home faster. She herself had been running longer undercover jobs; hunting leads on the Winter Soldier all across Europe. It involved a great deal of time, patience, and intimacy. (and betrayal of that intimacy.)

One of the best things about Clint was that he never pushed her to talk, Natasha mused, always content to sit in silence with her.

She observed the dark circles under his steely eyes, the slightly swollen knuckles wrapped around the shot glass, the scrape hidden at the top of his messy hairline, the childish boxers. So he had been sleeping then.

Natasha frowned.

"Thought you'd be asleep" she admitted after a moment. _How did you know to come find me?_

"I was." He shrugged and refilled both of their glasses. "Your little fan came and got me."

She had to think for less than half a second.

Darcy Lewis.

Natasha furrowed her brow.

Clint knocked back his second shot. Alcohol beginning to zing through him he looked far more awake. Natasha considered this to be regretful.

Placing the bottle down, he stepped back and hopped up on the counter beside the sink. He was always careful not to crowd her on nights like this. She never bothered to tell him that it wouldn't bother her if he got closer. That he meant too much to her to be mistaken for a mark now.

The man licked his lips slightly, "I like her. She's spunky."

If Natasha was a normal woman, she would have fidgeted at the soft rebuke tucked away in his meaning. As it was she ignored him and scooped out another bite of her cookie.

Natasha did not do well around civilians. (The real Natasha anyway- not Natalie, or Nicole, or Nancy…) They made her…uncomfortable. What was that thing Steve had said? Something about the troubles of finding someone with shared life experiences? It was true enough even if she had ragged on him a little. Civilians were witnesses, targets, casualties, obstacles…she could deal with them well enough when she had to. It was just irritating to have to have them invade a space she thought was going to be a place she could be _herself_.

"Aww come'on Tasha." The obnoxious man grinned with a hint of drawl slipping through his tone. The overgrown child swung his feet ever so slightly. "I think it's kinda cute. We don't often get fans. Or, not stable ones anyway."

'Cute', that was something she really didn't want to touch. (Because part of her liked Darcy Lewis more than she wanted to admit and the last time that had happened she's been standing drenched in the rain in Kiev with a gullible idiot aiming an arrow at her heart.)

"Certainly not any of yours." She deflected easily with a playful smirk.

The thought of fans made her just as...unsettled- as civilians. Historically, fans of the Black Widow had been interested for very different reasons than fans of people like Captain America. Darker reasons that had left her hands stained in blood. ( _Ah, but that was your own fault wasn't it? You knew exactly what you were doing._ )

Besides, all things considered Natasha thought she was doing rather well; it had been her idea to join the Avengers after all. Did she really need to be spending time around civilians too? (Even if they did make her treats that melted in her mouth. And, according to Thor himself, tasered Norse gods. And managed to make even being around Tony Stark tolerable….that man had been even more on edge lately…)

Barton rolled his eyes with that charming smirk of his and came off the counter with a slight leap. His landing was suitable silent. He tilted his head, eyes honing in on her mug, and his nostrils flared. Damn.

"Is that a cookie in your cup? How did you even do that?"

A wise question as Natasha was a terrible baker. How annoying that Clint was one of the few people in the world to know that. "No." She denied even as she scooped up another bite. It was going to get cold if she waited too long and she was enjoying the way the warm chocolate chips melted in her mouth.

He pouted like an overgrown child, "I don't even get one bite?"

"No."

"Na-at!" He whined, creeping closer.

Unimpressed Natasha took another bite.

She caught the kitchen knife he threw out of nowhere at her head smoothly between her fingers, the point half an inch from her eye. Still chewing the last of her bite she let him snatch the mug from counter.

"Oh come on!" He frowned in disappoint at the empty mug.

"You can put that away for me." Natasha told him. She slid out of her seat. She wanted to get out of this dress. "I will meet you in the sparing room in ten."

Heading off to change into more comfortable workout clothes she tucked any thought about Darcy Lewis out of her mind for now. She had other things to worry about; her next moves on the hunt for the Winter Soldier, Hydra, and the fractures in the team left by Sokovia. She didn't have time for anything else. (Natasha had always been skilled at lying. Even to herself.)


	4. Chapter 3

The next few days were busy ones for Darcy. Jane was caught up in some tangent and had them both working extra-long hours. In the rare moments she managed to sneak off to the kitchen for food, Darcy found it empty. She wondered if 'Natasha' was out on another mission. (It hadn't occurred to Darcy until later that 'Natasha' was probably not the Black Widows real name. Darcy wasn't offended by the thought. It was just the type of badass name Darcy would pick for herself in the unlikely event she became a kickass assassin in need of a cover.)

As the days began to drag on though Darcy started to wonder if she hadn't somehow offended The Widow- _Natasha_.

Then on one Monday afternoon, as Darcy was making her way through one of the long halls, she finally caught sight of the spy. Further ahead, walking towards her, the woman was talking on the phone with someone in clipped Russian. Darcy's steps slowed unconsciously. Natasha walked straight past her without a glance.

Maybe the cookie had been really bad? Had she mixed up the sugar and salt maybe?

Darcy forced her feet to move forward. She could hear the ever fainter sounds of Natasha's conversation fading away into the distance...

-….-….-…-

That night Darcy marched back up to the empty kitchen.

Rolling up her sleeves she set the oven to preheat and pulled out the largest mixing bowl she could find. She measured out the ingredients for a triple match and doubled the amount of chocolate chips the recipe called for. She used a whisk instead of the large hand mixer and stirred until both her arms burned with the soreness. Darcy filled three cookie sheets with the balls of dough and watched vigilantly until each tray was removed from the oven.

It was nearing two in the morning by the time the cookies had cooled enough for her to arrange on a glass plater.

Darcy left the cookies covered by a clear layer of saran wrap.

She avoided the kitchen for the next three days, opting instead to walk the long hike across the compound to the other kitchen.

-….-….-…-

On Thursday Darcy saw Natasha again.

In an almost mirror image of their last encounter, they were again passing each other in another long hall. Darcy looked straight ahead. She didn't stop or speed up. Natasha brushed passed her like she wasn't there.

 _Ouch_ , Darcy though honestly.

She blinked harshly.

"Lewis!"

Natasha's voice called out sharply from behind her and Darcy spun around on the heel of her sneakers.

Natasha wasn't looking at her. She had stopped a little further down the hall and was gazing out one of the large glass widows out onto the perfectly green grass. Darcy watch the woman throw back her molten colored hair with a brush of her head, her penetrating eyes sliding over to her with a glance. "Needed more chocolate chips." She said not unkindly. Then the assassin turned away and continued down the hall with silent footsteps.

Darcy stood there watching the Widow saunter further and further down that hall until she turned a corner- gone.

A breath of air she hadn't realized she had been holding blew out from her mouth.

Darcy wasn't entirely sure what to make of _whatever_ that had been, but in her chest what she felt most was- relief.

-….-….-…-

Finally a weekend arrived that Jane agreed to actually take off.

When Darcy woke on Saturday she felt the urgent need to get out of the building. While the Avengers Facility sometimes felt like its own Rapture-like city, she couldn't quite recall the last time she had been actually outside. It was no wonder she was getting a little claustrophobic.

Darcy had her phone play the latest news (BBC of course, Darcy's international classes had quickly trained her out of watching American news sources), while she brushed her teeth, took a quick shower, and threw on some clothes. She picked one of her favorite sweaters- purple with gray polka dots.

"There is a lot of emerging concern in the international community about the accountability of these so called 'super groups'. Teams like the Avengers. How are they going to be regulated? Who do they answer to? Who decides when they need to be called in and where? There is also the question of potential political agenda here. They have a man named Captain 'America' as their leader after all. It's a major concern for a lot of countries but especially small countries in the global south, like-"

Darcy slipped her feet into her well-worn boots; the brown leather ones that gave that made that click-y sound when she walked. Flicking the news off, she grabbed she shoulder bag and adjusted her black beanie for a final time.

Hurrying down the hall she headed for the elevator and the main floor.

Darcy was planning on heading to a cute bakery she had been to a few times previously. It was relatively nearby and great for pick up fresh beagles and other pastry treats. Because it turned out that Tony Stark could be something of a health nut and besides Thor's mandatory pop-tarts and the mac and cheese Darcy requested herself, there was not much in the way of junk food to be found in the compound. Tony tended to snack on blueberries for god sake and she could only guess that the rest of them were also trying to maintain their badass butt-kicking physiques.

Down in the foyer she encountered a rare sighting; almost the entire hero team was milling about. Captain America, Scarlet Witch and Falcon stood together, all in regular people clothes for once. Off a bit to the side, Hawkeye and Natasha were also dressed as civilians. They stood so close together it could almost be classified as 'hovering'. Tony Stark was still in his armor, helmet off, and frowning at the Captain.

And wow, that armor- totally badass and way cooler in person. Darcy kind of wanted to touch it.

"Tony, you need to be able to work with him. This isn't going to work otherwise. I kno-" Captain America was saying, running a tired hand across his face.

"Lewis!" Tony called in greeting once he spotted her, cutting off the Captain sharply.

"Stark!" she yelled back unnecessarily loud as she approached the group. ' _Winter is coming_ ' she thought in amusement.

Hawkeye tilted his head, eyes on her bag. "Where are you off to?" he signed and spoke simultaneously. He'd been doing that since he learned she knew very basic ASL. It had actually been very helpful in improving her own sign vocabulary although she was still very far away from being actually fluent.

"Out on a mission. Hardcore stuff." She shrugged easily.

Captain America's eyebrows drew together as he looked between the two. Darcy wondered if he perhaps thought she had some superpower he wasn't aware of. Or maybe he was just wondering who she was.

Natasha gave her a considering look. "Need some backup?" she asked coolly.

The words registered but the meaning took a second to process. The Black Widow, _Natasha_ , wanted to go with her? Out in public together? Darcy blinked in surprise.

She forcefully reminded herself to play it cool. "Yeah, sure. If you want. Should be a short trip." She replied a little uncertainly. If she had known cookies were all it took to make friends with The Black Widow she'd have baked trays full weeks ago.

"Wouldn't have offered if I didn't want to," Natasha affirmed carelessly as she turned to Tony. "Mind if we take one of your toys?"

"Go wild." he told her, tossing a set of keys from god knows where. Did the Iron Man suit have pockets?

"Tony-"

Ignoring the Captain's reproachful tone Tony stomped off towards the elevators.

Darcy looked after him for a moment.

"Come on, I'll show you where all the fun toys are." The Widow called, heading for a side door Darcy had never been through. Slowly tearing her eyes away the brunette followed after her.

"Have fun!" Hawkeye grinned as she passed.

He looked far too smug.

"Later Hawkguy!"

"It's Hawkeye!"

-….-….-…-

"Where are we headed?" Natasha asked as they pulled out the parking garage.

Darcy didn't know the name of the type of car she was sitting in but she was certain that one if its seats was probably worth more than her soul.

She pulled her phone from her pocket and read off the address for the bakery. They fell into silence. Natasha focused on the road and Darcy tapped her foot and wondered if it would be rude to turn on the radio. Of all times for her motor mouth to abandon her.

"You're Jane Fosters assistant." Natasha said giving her a quick look. Darcy had a very brief moment to wonder if this thing of people spontaneously knowing more about her then they should would ever surprise her again. Probably not.

"Yep. Well, I think officially I'm still an intern. But yeah, she's totally how I got involved in all this crazy. I was there when Jane ran over Thor with her van."

Natasha smiled bemusedly, "He thinks very highly of you. You must the one he calls his 'lightning sister'."

Thor was a sweetheart. She thought briefly of the last time she had seen him; she and Jane had been in Iceland and Thor had managed to meet up with them for a few cold but beautiful days in Reykjavik. They had all been formally invited to a religious gathering with the Norse Pagans of the region. Thor had been deeply humbled by both the huge crowd of people that had turned out to hear him speak and of the temple they were constructing on the cliff side there. It was going to be the first Norse temple to be built in a thousand years. He had spoken regally and with heartfelt passion to the people he called 'his little kin'- regaling them with tales of bloody battles and of honor of long ago. It had been a little weird to see him that way; displaying every inch his nobility and his true age.

Jane had always seen more science in Thor than magic. But listening to him speak that day about the wars he had fought thousands of years ago, Darcy thought her friend was perhaps underestimating the true transcendental nature of their god friend.

When he had lifted that shining hammer to the darkening sky and summoned resplendent bolts of crackling lightning over all their heads it had felt like something…divine.

They had feasted afterwards in Scandinavian Norse style with drafts of ale and beer and fire roasted meats until the sun broke dawn again. He must have sensed that they would not see him again for some time because he pulled her aside afterwards to speak. "You are a shield maiden true, my sister of lightning. Keep an eye on Jane and yourself, yes? With you by her side, there is nothing I need fear for my Lady." The knowing look in his eyes had been a stark reminder that he was not as stupid as he sometimes made himself appear.

Darcy smiled at the memory. She missed the big guy.

"We're pretty tight. I tased him."

The curl of Natasha's bemused smile turned slightly devious and she looked maybe even a little impressed. Darcy bobbed her head knowingly at the look. "Yep. He was totally freaking me out at the time but it was…epic. And apparently since I 'felled him in battle' I've become his lightning sister. Since then Jane, Thor, Eric and I have been pretty much sticking together."

Natasha switched lanes. "But you're not a scientist."

It didn't sound like a question but Darcy gave a hum of agreement. "Nope. Most of it goes way over my head but…we're all kind of family now. We took on crazy alien demon elves together, no going back after that even if I wanted to. Me, Jane, and Thor, we're are all BFFs now. It's the crazy stuff that makes you stick together forever." She gave Natasha a considering look, "Like you and Hawkeye, right?"

They pulled up at a stoplight and Natasha turned to really looked at her. Darcy stared back a little confused. The intense green of the Widows eyes ran over her and she fought the urge to fidget. Natasha must have found what she was looking for though because she turned back to the road. Some barely perceivable tension ran out of the spies shoulders. "You know you can call him Clint, right?"

Darcy blinked. "Clint? Is that his name? What kind of superhero is named Clint? Oh my god, is it short for Clinton? That's _atrocious_." Darcy chipped delightedly.

Natasha raised an eyebrow slightly incredulously and more than a little amused. "You didn't know his name?"

Darcy shrugged a little and admitted, "I didn't know yours either until you told me. You two aren't like Thor or Tony or Rogers. People use their names and their codenames interchangeably. The media always calls you Black Widow and Hawkeye." In a moment of complete brain to mouth filter failure she continued on and blurted out, "You were always my favorite by the way. My favorite Avenger."

"That's because you have good taste." Natasha said looking smugly pleased.

-….-….-…-

The bakery was tiny, only three tables and a line of glass showcasing their wares. However, there was no denying that the smell was sinfully enticing. More important to Darcy though was the little rainbow sign taped to the side of the cash register.

"Darcy! Welcome back!" the cashier greeted from behind the counter. The place was empty but for a young man tucked at the far corner engrossed in his phone and eating a beagle.

"Hey Jesse! How've you been? Would you mind grabbing me and my friend here a dozen sesame beagles? And one of those garlic baguettes if you still have any?"

Jesse grinned and pulled on a pair of clear plastic gloves. "Of course. Anything else?"

Darcy looked to Natasha. The other woman walked along the display case for a moment. She bent a little to get a closer look at something before turning back to the cashier. "One of those pink doughnut if you wouldn't mind."

"Make that two!" Darcy chimed, rocking on her heels.

"Two cherry cider doughnuts coming up!"

Jesse rang them up and Darcy stuffed her $3.42 in change into the charity jar on the counter. She turned to Natasha who leaned back against the counter beside her, eyes roving the bakery. "Outside or inside?" Darcy asked, juggling her stack of purchases.

Quickly, Natasha relived her of the bag of garlic bread. "Outside, if you wouldn't mind."

"Thanks," Darcy said absentmindedly, "and sure. We can go for a walk."

The door jingled shut as Darcy gave Jesse a wave farewell and the two took off down the street. Fishing around in the pastry bag Darcy grabbed a doughnut and carefully passed it to Natasha before diving back in to get her own. "I don't like small enclosed spaces." Natasha said suddenly. Darcy blinked in surprise and the Widow continued unflappably, "I can handle them fine. But I prefer more space to move if I'm ambushed." Her gait continued smoothly and her face was comfortably open in the sun but Darcy thought that was the kind of thing one didn't admit lightly.

"Makes sense to me." Darcy nodded.

Natasha smirked a little and raised a sharp eyebrow. "You don't think I'm paranoid?" she wondered, a soft teasing lilt to her voice.

Darcy scoffed. "Of course you're paranoid. You're a badass super-spy." She took a large bite if her doughnut. So good. Natasha had chosen well. "Anyway, it's not paranoia when they really are out to get you. I mean, _I'm_ a little paranoid and I've only had to deal with one homicidal death bot and a few evil space gremlin elves. It'd be weird if you weren't paranoid."

Natasha took a graceful bite if her own doughnut. "And if I told you we were about to be attacked?"

Finishing off the last bite of her doughnut goodness, Darcy grinned and lifted the loose top flap of her messenger bag to reveal the taser sitting in the front pouch. Natasha smirked approvingly.

All in all the bakery trip was a resounding success and once back at the compound she and Natasha parted ways with a friendly wave. Darcy rode the high she got from that for the rest of the weekend and was equally thrilled that the next time they met in the kitchen, Natasha's friendlier demeanor remained.

-….-….-…-

By Wednesday afternoon Clint, Natasha, and Darcy lounged in the blue family room together like old friends.

It should have been strange, how quickly they had become something almost like friends. Especially after how Natasha had first reacted to her. Darcy didn't really understand it, didn't really know how this had happened, but she was incredibly…happy.

They had tried playing Uno earlier but that had quickly dissolved into an all-out, dirty cheating war. Then they had switched to TV. They tried the news first, but it hadn't stayed on for more than two minutes before they switched over to some horror movie (they had been running interviews about Sokovia.) The movie hadn't lasted long either. After only maybe ten minutes the screen had splattered with a florescent red as one of the stereotypical teens was cut in half by a chainsaw, to which Natasha had responded by tilting her head and commenting about how no human she had ever stabbed had ever bleed that much. Clint had promptly snagged the remote and changed the channel. Now they were watching some real-estate interior decorating show and criticizing design choices.

"That paint does not go with those tiles." Clint scoffed, grabbing a hand full of popcorn.

Natasha sat between Clint and Darcy on the couch wrapped tightly in a blanket. The Russian shook her head disapprovingly, "It's only a problem because they made the counters too dark."

Darcy hummed a little. "I think she's going to go with the other house…oh shit." Rubbing her eyes Darcy quickly counted to be sure she hadn't dropped a stitch.

Reassured that she hadn't ruined the scarf (Darcy had one direction is kitting and that was forward. She had no idea how to fix mistakes beyond tearing the whole thing apart and starting over), she tuned back in to the house drama. Darcy smiled as Clint tossed a piece of popcorn at Natasha and the woman caught it with her mouth.

It felt really good to do this. She and Jane were close, _really_ close, but they obviously weren't always around each other. Darcy had missed having a group of people she could just…hang out with. How long had it been? Not since junior year of college…

By three in the morning though even night owl Darcy was ready for bed and she lazily began packing up her knitting bag. Almost done with another scarf. She really should find a charity to donate them all to.

"Would you make me one?" Natasha asked watching Darcy stretch. The brunette rubbed her eyes, mind working slowly. Clint stared at the back of his partners head.

"Make you what?" Darcy yawned.

"A beanie like yours." Natasha clarified, "I can pay you if you want."

"You want a beanie? Um sure. You don't have to pay me for that…what color?" Darcy had been slowly zoning out the last two episodes they had watched and trying to think was difficult. She stifled another yawn.

"Pink." Clint told her from behind Natasha's shoulder but the woman made no move to correct him.

"Pink, I can do that…" Darcy confirmed pensively. She was far too tired to try and figure out whatever the looks being exchanged between the two agents meant. She stood wearily, ready to head for bed, when Jane burst into the room like a mad woman.

"Darcy!" she cried desperately, "I cant find the- " "Third drawer on the right hand side of your desk, under last weeks reports." "and my –" "that was confiscated until you agreed to eat dinner." Darcy reminded her as she rubbed sleep from her eyes.

"Oh. I did that." Jane said as she fiddled with the hem of her flannel shirt helplessly.

Looking at her friends pleading eyes was a mistake Darcy should have known by now to avoid. She sighed. "Come on then. We'll do two more hours of work and then we are both going to sleep."

Dragging her knitting bag like it was a ten ton weight she waved farewell to the spies and steered Jane towards the exit where she literally ran into Captain America. Darcy squinted unhappily at the muscled chest. "beep, beep." She told him impatiently and he awkwardly moved aside.

Sooner they got to the labs the sooner they could leave.

Three and half hours later, curse Jane's infernal puppy-eyes, it was only once she finally crawled into her bed that she thinks, ' _Pink on Natasha would be…kind of …adorable_.'

The thought jolted her awake.

She rolled over to stare at the ceiling.

"Shit."


	5. Chapter 4

Darcy woke far earlier than the late night of work should have allowed. (It seemed even when she could sleep in she was destined to be deprived of a full eight hours.) She stared at the ceiling miserably. Her thoughts swirled uncomfortably.

She may possibly have a slight tiny problem she realized unpleasantly.

Darcy had known she liked Natasha. She'd been enthralled by the grainy image of her running around the Battle of New York like some exploding jungle gym- strangling aliens with her thighs and brutally ripping through enemies like wet paper.

Like most people who had someone they admired though, that _like_ had always been a distant thing. Intangible and strengthened by the perfection of ignorance and unfamiliarity. A figure on a poster crafted in a mix of reality and Photoshop.

She had never expected to meet the person she admired, let alone get the chance to spend enough time with them to see them as…real.

Beginning to really _know_ Natasha was…different.

She was still gorgeous of course.

Pretty to look at like they all were.

But working and living and generally being around superheroes meant Darcy had grown pretty used to being surrounded by beautiful people.

Heroes all tended to be beings of flawless skin, sculpted muscle, and unnatural grace. Darcy found no shame in saying she enjoyed that part of her crazy life. It was like being surrounded by the most beautiful sculptures brought to life. When she stared at them she sometimes wondered if they aren't a little bit like the elves in Lord of the Rings, so perfect as to be slightly unnatural.

(At least until they did something adorably stupid like that time she found Tony with his hand stuck in a jar or that time Scarlet Witch spilt coffee on her shirt and sat there staring forlornly at it.)

But the Black Widow was no longer that beautiful grainy image being observed from the far side of a screen. Now she was _Natasha_.

With a bit of a sinking feeling Darcy forcefully hiked the overs higher. She pulled them over her head and tucked them around her chin in a tight cocoon. Then she shut her eyes again and tried to force herself back to sleep. Thoughts kept traitorously surfacing…

The problem was that the more time she spent with Natasha the more little things she noticed. Like how, when presented with a choice between things, Natasha sometimes didn't seem to know what she wanted...or _, no, that wasn't it_. It was more that she seemed surprised to realize that she had a preference. There was this …vulnerability when those moments happened. Like Natasha was letting Darcy really see her.

Natasha was skilled and deadly and secretly liked the color pink. She had an insatiable sweet tooth, a fondness for theater, and a dark slightly sardonic type of humor. Whenever Darcy managed to get Natasha to smile it was that 'paw in the hand' type feeling. Which was nice because not a lot of people choose Darcy.

( _God she didn't want to think about that._ )

So she liked Natasha she realized gloomily. Was even standing on the very dangerous precipice of _really_ liking her.

And she had absolutely no idea what she was going to do about it.

-….-….-…-

A few hours later Darcy finally gave up the pretense of sleep and rolled herself out of bed.

She dragged a hand through her tangled hair and grabbed her phone from her nightstand. Jane must not have been sleeping well either because she had a few texts from her friend that had come in during the early hours of the morning.

Thankfully it seemed that not only did she have the day off, but that Captain America, Falcon, and The Black Widow had all disappeared from the building on a mission. An embarrassing amount of relief flooded through her at the thought that she wasn't going to have to face Natasha immediately. Hopefully they would be gone long enough for her to pull herself together.

She spent the morning stress knitting in her pajamas. Darcy got half way done with a hat, hated it, took it apart, and remade it better following a pattern she found on the depths of the internet.

Darcy knit the best damn beanie she'd ever made. Pink on one side, black on the other, with a little red spider that shown through either way it was worn. She still finished in record time. A quick glance at her phone told her it was still only 10.

Nerves faded somewhat, she jammed on a pair of slippers and shuffled off in search of breakfast.

Hair a mess, rocking her cat-face pajamas, Darcy stumbled into the kitchen to find the Scarlet Witch and Vision sitting at the island counter together. Darcy hadn't interacted much with either of them before as she saw them only sparingly around the building. Presumably they spent much of their time training in the complexes various gyms. Still, she offered a somewhat bleary greeting they quietly returned as Darcy grabbed some cereal.

Tony swaggered into the kitchen just as she was finishing up her bowl.

Dressed in what she would classify as 'business casual' with the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to his elbows, he looked a little better than the last time she'd seen him but not by much. His eyes swept over Wanda, passed over Vision entirely, and honed in in Darcy. "Lewis! Nice hair, very 80's glam rock." He told her with a flashy grin.

She gave him a withering look he completely ignored, puttering around the blender and fridge.

"Well you would know wouldn't you, old man?" She shot back with no real bite.

Tony threw some green thing into the blender and scowled at her. "Rude."

She raised an eyebrow at his suspiciously healthy looking smoothie in retort, "Gross."

Darcy watched him chug the smoothie down, his body angled away from the two Avengers sitting at the counter. His eyes were dark and face a little pinched.

 _Perfect_ , she decided.

What better way to avoid her own problems then to fix someone else's?

The billionaire's phone rang and he fished it from his pocket as he placed his glass in the dishwasher. He gave her a tight wave farewell and disappeared from the kitchen in a rush, shoulders a little hunched as he passed by Vision, as Darcy got up to clear her own bowl.

Hands on her hips in a move stolen from Jane, Darcy rounded on the two Avengers still sitting at the island. "Okay," she asked, "What the hell was that?"

The Sokovian woman gave her a surprised look but Vision looked nonplussed. "I believe Mr. Stark is still struggling to reconcile me existence with the loss of his A.I." he told her blandly.

"You killed his A.I.?"

The Scarlet Witch shook her head. "He is not the same." She said like that cleared everything up.

Which it didn't.

She stared at the pair.

The two looked at each other for a moment before conceding to tell her the story of Ultron and the birth of Vision. Turned out the whole thing with Sokovia was more complicated then she had thought. Sometimes Darcy thought her own life was strange but man, _nope_. Whole new level of crazy. "So Ultron is dead and you are like the half ghost son of Tony Starks A.I. combined with a glowing rock from outer space?"

Vision tilted his head in consideration. "Your phrasing is imprecise but essentially correct."

"So what about Jarvis?" Darcy wondered and the two gave her confused looks.

Vision's unnatural eyes tracked her curiously. Darcy vaguely wondered if his pupils worked like a camera lens. "As you said, J.A.R.V.I.S is gone." Vision told her.

Scarlet Witch was frowning.

 _Yeah, OK but that didn't really answer her question_. Darcy frowned while the Scarlet Witch turned purposefully back towards Vision as though the cut Darcy out of their conversation.

Discussion apparently over Darcy stalked from the kitchen in a bit of a huff.

She wondered why no one else seemed concerned about what was going on with Tony. Did they just not notice? It seemed pretty obvious to Darcy at least that something was, yeah know, _wrong_.

If the loss of Jarvis was what had caused that melt down she had witnessed then the A.I. was more important to Tony then any of his teammates seemed to realize.

Darcy's brows furrowed uneasily in though. She paused in the middle of the hallway then turned on her heels back in the opposite direction. Natasha may be out on a mission but there was someone else Darcy might still be able to get help from.

Darcy went in search of Clint.

-….-….-…-

Still dressed in the pajamas and slippers Darcy crept nervously down the empty hallway.

She has only been to this section of the building once before, on the complimentary tour of the building right after she and Jane had moved in. Even though she was _technically_ allowed to be there it felt weird. This was where the Avengers trained after all, definitely not her usual territory.

The air in this part of the building felt more recycled and sterile, smelling of disinfectant and sweat. Darcy passed by the wide set of windows that looked down into the large obstacle course room that was used for team exercises. She brushed her hand against the glass. It was huge, two stories tall, utilizing both ground and aerial space, but dark and empty now. She walked on down towards the smaller rooms intended for more individualized training.

Seeing light from one of the wall windows, Darcy hurried along over. Through the glass she could see a target range and, finally, Hawkeye.

He was tearing through arrows at a literally blinding speed. Pulling from his quiver, shooting, and pulling another almost before the first arrow left the string.

 _Holy crap_.

Not being a complete idiot, she stood and waited until his quiver ran dry before knocking and opening the door. "Hey Clint!" Darcy called as the man headed to collect his perfectly clustered arrows.

"Clint?" she asked, following behind him. He turned sharply on his heel, muscles tense, then blinked at her face and shook his head exasperatedly.

Tapping a finger to his ear he made his way over to the table by the wall as Darcy flushed a little behind him.

 _Right. duh, Lewis_.

The man stuffed a tiny hearing aid into one of his ears than leaned back casually against the table. "What's up?" Clint he asked easily.

Stealing herself Darcy told him, "I have a mission for you." At his expression she amended, "Well, I have a mission. Personal mission. And it's probably going to require some skills…a very particular set of skills. Skills you have acquired over a very long career..."

"Nice," Clint smirked in approval as his strangely intense eyes gave her a look over. "Depends on what you want done."

"Just some information and maybe a little help breaking and entering. Do you know if there are any computers that were part of the lab that made Vision in the building?"

By his expression, whatever he had been expecting it hadn't been that.

"Yes," he confirmed slowly.

"Do you know where they are?"

He nodded, sharp eyes focused on her. Darcy gave a cheeky smile, "Think you could get me into one?"

-….-….-…-

As Darcy shuffled painfully along she could just make out the bottom of Clint's shoes in the darkness. She pulled herself along on her forearms, laptop bag tucked under her chin, wondering how the hell she had let him talk her into this. 'If we're doing this, we're doing it my way'. _Yeah fucking right_. She vowed to never again trust Clint. Never ever again. Her arms were aching and definitely going to be bruised tomorrow and a drip of sweat clung uncomfortably right above her right eye.

Now she knew the secret to his gigantic stupid arms. They didn't come from his stupid compound bow but from scuttling along air vents all day like a lunatic.

Finally, finally, she heard the clattering of Clint removing a vent cover that meant she was almost free. She awkwardly shoved her laptop out the opening and dragged herself through, elbow scratching against the side of the metal opening. Flopping on the floor bonelessly she glared up at the infuriatingly composed Hawkeye. "I think I hate you." She panted, dragging in breaths of cool fresh air.

He had the gall to laugh.

"Got you here didn't I?" he asked easily and offered her a callused hand. Clasping it, she hoisted herself to her feet. They were in a lab somewhere in the medical facility of the compound; she hadn't had much occasion to be here before but the hospital like aesthetic was unmistakable. Darcy cast her gaze around with laptop bag held hopefully in her arms. Medical equipment, some kind of weird chamber coffin like thing ( _probably better to just ignore that_ ), a bed in the corner, and yes, a regular computer on the desk. "Not to stress you out or anything but you're ganna want to work fast if you really don't want anyone else knowing." Clint warned her as he hopped up on the bed.

"Right." She agreed. Darcy marched over to the computer and unzipped her laptop bag. She dug through one of the pockets for her USB connector cable and got to work.

"Remind me again why you don't want anyone knowing what you're doing?"

Darcy scoffed as she hooked up her laptop to the computer. "What I'm _trying_ to do. That's the point. I want to know if I even have anything to work with before I go bringing it up with Tony."

Bypassing the login screen, Darcy got to work searching through files and history; she was really hoping to find some kind of autosave. Something local to the computer rather than the server she was sure Tony would have already scoured through...

Darcy was good with computers. She had spent a lot of her childhood playing with code; decorating her Neopets page back in the day with basic HTML had launched her interest in C++ which had, in turn, eventually got her into hacking. Her enjoyment of the subject and her penchant for pushing limits had made her quite good over the years. Hacking S.H.I.E.L.D. for Thor was her most crowning achievement.

Still she was certainly not deluded enough to think herself better with computers then Tony Stark and he had at least been acting like this was a lost cause…

And yet…twenty minutes in, just as she began to lose hope….

' _Holy shit_.'

Darcy stared at the screen for a moment then she let her fingers fly over the keys. She copied everything she could find onto her laptop; thanking Stark Technologies that download speeds were so fast. Finishing up she glanced over to find Clint watching her closely. "What?" she asked, closing her laptop gently and removing the USB connector cord.

He shook his head and hopped down from the bed. "Nothing. Good to go?"

At her agreement he went over to the key padded door and punched in a code. The door beeped and slid open. Darcy stared in disbelief at the doorway. "Are you serious? You could have opened that this whole time?"

Clint smirked at her. "Of course. I am an Avenger." He waggled an eyebrow at her. "Good luck Lewis!" he called and bolted off like a coward.

(He's experiences with Natasha had well taught him when it was time to retreat.)

"Oh you little shit! Least favorite Avenger ever!" She avowed angrily. Storming into the hall she looked one way then the other down the empty unfamiliar corridors. He had vanished. "Your bow is stupid!" she yelled into the void.

With a mighty sigh she turned and glared back at the loose vent cover. There would be retribution for this she promised herself.

-….-….-…-

Darcy sat on her bed that night, laptop open, pouring over code. She dragged a hand through her tangled dark hair. The code was a mess and also really, really complicated. She felt like she was looking at an all-white jigsaw puzzle missing half its pieces. Darcy got up to grab some cookie dough from the freezer.

This was going to take awhile. A long while.

For the next few days Darcy went to work in the lab with Jane and then went straight back to her laptop, trying to force the code into some semblance of order. It was painfully slow going, working with huge chunks of data missing.

When a knock came to her door Darcy tumbled out of bed. Electric like tingles shot up and down her toes. She tapped her foot repeatedly as she made her way to the door, trying to return feeling to it before pulling the heavy door open with a sigh.

It was Natasha.

Out of her typical catsuit and dressed in a pair of dark blue jeans and a black jersey top. Her hair was straightened today and she had a pair of small dangling rose-gold earrings on. Darcy ran her hands over self-consciously the sides of her little-mewmew pajama pants she'd had custom made before then Avengers had saved New York and official merchandise became available.

"Can I come in?" Natasha asked.

Darcy moved aside with a gesture, "Oh, sure!" Her voice was thankfully only a little higher pitched then normal.

Moving back over to her bed Darcy sat gingerly on the mattress and Natasha hesitated a moment before sitting beside her. "Clint told me what you were doing." She said eyeing Darcy's open glowing laptop.

Darcy nodded and bit her lip.

She had asked Clint to keep the mission to himself but she'd known before she'd even asked that Natasha would be the exception to that. The two spies were like half of each other's brains. Darcy doubted there was much they kept from each other.

Despite Darcy's nerves it was _good_ to see Natasha again, looking just as flawless and healthy as the last time they had seen each other. (So maybe she had been getting a little worried.) Darcy had missed the Widow's presence in the kitchen. Their little game of 'offerings', Natasha's calming presence when she got lost in a book, staying up with her and Clint and watching stupid movies and television together…

The spy and the intern sat in contemplative silence for a while before Natasha finally asked, "Why?" Her voice low and steady. Perhaps vaguely curious.

With a sigh Darcy flopped heavily back on the bed, head just narrowly missing her laptop.

That was a question she was wrestling with herself so naturally it would be the question Natasha honed in on. "I don't know man. Maybe because I eat all his food and mooch off his Wi-Fi?"

"You don't mooch, you work here." Natasha refuted easily with a raised eyebrow.

Darcy groaned. "Look, I just… I learned a lot about his company and the crazy number of charities he runs in my political science classes. And it's more than a little insane. Which I didn't think was possible because all the others corporations are basically giant conglomerate monsters. And Stark Industries used to be that way too. I remember watching all the scandals on TV and Tony was kind of an asshole…but after he got back from Afghanistan things went crazy. He basically rewrote the book on everything... After-school programs, helping fund refugee NGOs, all sorts of stuff. God, my professor _never_ shut up about him…And cuz I'm mixed up in all of this insanity here too, I know that he's also basically funding all of this Avengers stuff out of his own pocket. And that got to mean even more press work and politic maneuverings. And you guys can't be making it easy when you go off and explode stuff in other sovereign countries. Tony does all this work, right? More than I think you guys' maybe appreciate? Or maybe you just don't know?"

Darcy trailed off for a moment listening to Natasha soft breathing.

"The guy can be a bit of a dick sometimes I'm sure. But, like, dudes been through some crazy shit and he keeps trying to do the right thing. And you all are his teammates so maybe you know something I don't, but I feel like…I don't know….like, losing his A.I. was a bigger deal than you guys know."

Darcy jerked a little in surprise as Natasha flopped back beside her. Her hair was growing out Darcy noticed. The red locks curled to brush Natasha's shoulders. "Okay." Natasha said quietly as her eyes scanned Darcy's face, "Let me know if there is anything I can do to help."

For a quiet moment they just looked at each other.

Looking at Natasha's fathomless green eye, Darcy wondered at the sort of life this woman must have lived. People didn't just _become_ assassins. It wasn't something you could just wake up one morning and decide to do…or at least, not well. She'd read the press releases about Tony's time in Afghanistan and seen how that one terrifying, horrifying experience had reshaped the man. She was suddenly horribly curious about that lay in Natasha's past. What had made her who she was? How did she become The Black Widow? Did she have family? Was her real name actually Natasha? How had she come to work for S.H.I.E.L.D.?

Whatever had happened she knew with sobering clarity that there had to be unthinkable pain and tragedy there.

To be able to pull yourself from that kind of darkness…that was truly _incredible_.

She must have been staring too long because Natasha arched an eyebrow at her.

A smile crept over Darcy's face and she remembered suddenly the finished beanie she had tucked away at the bottom of her knitting bag. "I've got something for you." Darcy proclaimed. Jumping off the bed, she went over to her knitting bag and removed a few balls of yarn, digging around in the bottom until she found the beanie. "I finished it." she said, offering the hat to Natasha.

"Already?" The other woman pushed herself off the bed and stood to accept it. She turned the soft beanie over in her hands, turning the knitting from pink over to black and back again. She ran a finger over the tiny red spider and smiled. "Thank you Darcy."

Darcy desperately hoped she wasn't visibly blushing, "Uh…yeah. Anytime."

In a moment of typical Darcy stupidity, she awkwardly stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Natasha. The other woman froze for a moment and she felt a bolt of fear that she may have crossed an unwanted boundary. Then Natasha's arms slowly pressed around her in return, squeezing softly, before gently pushing Darcy away.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" the Russian confirmed before heading for the door. Natasha slipped from the room with a wish goodnight and Darcy stood staring at the door far longer than she had any right to.

-….-….-…-

It was 4:07 in the morning and Darcy has lost all control of her life. And she was pretty sure she was becoming Jane. Had to be osmosis or some shit.

It was the only explanation for why she was sitting in the kitchen at, she glanced at the clock, 4:08 am, in the dark, with laptop, still wearing yesterday's clothes. She plonked her head on the island in exhaustion. This was hard. Like crazy extremely difficult. The coding was incredibly complex and nuanced and parts of it she was convinced had to be done in a coding language Tony must have invented. And worst of all, it wasn't doing nearly as much as she had hoped it would to _distract_ her.

"Darcy?"

It wasn't Tony's voice so Darcy didn't see the point in slamming her laptop closed. Instead she just tilted her head on the marble and peered at the two figures standing in the doorway. It was Natasha and Captain America, both looking like they had just emerged from the gym.

God damn it. Of course the superhero of persistence and hard work would show up now.

"Hello Natasha, hello Captain America." She greeted sadly.

Captain America offered a confused, uncertain smile. "You can call me Steve, Darcy."

Oh hey, he knew her name too.

One step closer to a full set.

"Hello Captain Steve."

Natasha sighed but it was one if those breathy ones that meant she was covering a laugh.

Darcy slid a hand up and closed her laptop in at least temporary defeat. The two superheroes moved into the room; Natasha headed straight for a tiny side drawer as Captain Steve grabbed a protein shake from the fridge. He settled awkwardly beside her at the island. "Is something wrong?" he asked sounding like he was barely restraining from tacking a 'ma'am' to the end of his question.

"Oh you know; global warming, the socio-economic gap between the global north and south, systemic poverty, racism." Darcy fired off without thought. Captain Steve stared at her a little wide-eyed and thrown.

"She's tired." Natasha told him.

A warm glass was pushed into Darcy's hand. She twisted head to look at the glass of warm milk Natasha had given her. With great effort she lifted her head to take a small sip. The Captain and the Widow conversed quietly for a few moments, something about raids in Germany, while Darcy made her way leisurely through the drink. Once the glass was empty Natasha took it and placed it in the dishwasher. She then put Darcy laptop in the brunette's arms and began to steer her from the kitchen.

"Say goodnight, Darcy."

"Goodnight Darcy." Darcy muttered raising a lazy salute to Captain America. Which, hilariously, the man returned.

Being led down to her room was a strange sense of almost reverse déjà vu for Darcy. It was after all typically her leading Jane to bed. The Widow opened Darcy's door and half carried the other woman to her bed. Darcy collapsed on top of the mattress and kicked off her shoes. As Natasha pulled away Darcy curled to her side and instinctively grabbed the spy's fingers loosely. Natasha froze at once. "I don't think I can fix it." Darcy confessed tiredly.

"Why not?" Natasha asked quietly still facing away towards the door.

Natasha's hands were surprisingly small, Darcy observed, the fingers smooth in her feather light grip. "There's just too much missing. There are huge gaps in the data. I can put it in order and maybe sort of fill the gaps but it wouldn't be…the same."

Wouldn't be J.A.R.V.I.S- Darcy knew. She'd been doing her research. There wasn't a whole lot of information available publicly about J.A.R.V.I.S; there was the patent Darcy had managed to find and an article in a tech magazine that described it (him?) as 'an advanced security system' but Visions story about Sokovia, Tony's reaction to his (its?) death, and the code she had managed to salvage, showed he had been a lot more than that.

The bed dipped slightly as Natasha perched on the very edge. "So what are your options?" At Darcy's silence she continued, "I would say you have three. Put it away and forget about it," Natasha ignored Darcy's huff at that, "Give him what you've recovered as it is. Let him decide what to do with it."

Darcy considered for a moment. It wasn't such a bad plan. Still- "Or?"

"Or you fill in what you can and make something new."

Darcy nodded.

Natasha's thumb gently caressed Darcy's hand in slow circles.

The last thing Darcy wanted to do was hand Tony some Frankenstein bastardized corpse of his A.I. At the same time though…the idea of returning it unfinished just felt _wrong_ in her gut. Like handing him an open wound rather than the closure she intended.

"I must go, pchelka." Natasha said softly.

Darcy released the woman's fingers and watched as they slid from her grip.

As Natasha reached the door Darcy pushed herself more upright and called out hastily, "Is everything okay with you?"

The shadows masked Natasha's face as she looked back from the open door, light from the hall streaming in. "I'm fine Darcy. Get some sleep."

When the door clicked shut Darcy's heart was still pounding helplessly against her ribs.

 _Damn it._


	6. Chapter 5

"We're just not getting the readings I thought we would." Jane's voice was strange and echoed from the bowels of her machine, "Maybe we should consider going somewhere north again. Just for a little while."

Taking an unhappy sip from her coffee, Darcy drained away the last of her evening cup while she listened with half an ear to Jane's ramblings.

"Jane, I have a problem."

Jane stuck her head out from the bottom of her latest machine, hair disheveled, duct tape clutched in hand. "Why? What happened?" she asked in that 'am-I-concerned-or-am-I-about-to-be-angry' mom voice. Which was adorable because Darcy was definitely the responsible one between the two of them. (At least she didn't go around sticking her hand in glowing crevices after falling through inter-dimensional wormholes.)

"Cool your heels, mama bear. I just…" Darcy sighed.

In a move that looked vaguely like something out of a horror movie, Jane scuttled out from under the metal contraption. "What's wrong?" she demanded. Darcy spun her chair a little side to side.

"There may possibly be someone I'm …interested in." Darcy scowled.

Jane blinked in surprise. "Really?"

Darcy gave her a perfectly deadpan look and the other woman shook her head. "I didn't mean it like that." Jane denied. Brushing off her pants the astrophysicists pulled up a chair beside her. "I'm surprised is all. You've been so adamant about not dating."

Darcy frowned and rolled a highlighter between her hands. Jane sighed and gave her assistant a meaningful look. "I've told you already what I think. That hasn't changed. If they turn out to be a jerk then they weren't worth your time to begin with."

"That's basically the same advice I gave you after Thor left the first time!" Darcy huffed.

Her boss shrugged unrepentantly, "Guess you give good advice then."

Darcy clicked the highlighter lid; on, off, on, off. "It's more complicated for me!" she insisted.

"I'm sure it probably is," Jane agreed gently, "and if you don't want to do anything that's fine. But if it's something that would make you happy then I stand by my previous advice. It doesn't have to be anything serious or intense. Just take it slow, invite them out to do something fun."

"Urg, I hate when you're reasonable. It is so unhelpful!"

Jane laughed a little then stood and began clearing away her tools. "Come on. It's Friday and it's about time for movie night to start anyway."

Feeling unreasonably grumpy, Darcy spun her chair back to her desk, saved her documents, and shut down for the night. She followed Jane over to the elevator. She stood in resolute grumpy silence while Jane bumped her side repeatedly. "Alright, alright, fine." she grouched, feeling a grin trying to sneak its way onto her face.

She really was glad she could talk freely with Jane.

When she had first taken her internship with the astrophysics things had been a little _tense_. They hadn't work very well together at first; two stubborn bulls butting heads. Jane had been really hoping for someone who understood her field and Darcy was still trying to recover from all the shit that had gone down on campus and hadn't appreciated feeling like she was being talked down to. Then that email had come in. Darcy had been certain those had stopped before she had applied for the internship with Jane, but low one morning there was one sitting in 'the teams' general inbox. Jane had read it in the early morning before Darcy could get a chance to delete it.

Jane's response to it had been the beginnings of the shift in their relationship.

Using all the clout and intimidation afforded her by two PhD's and a doctorate, Jane had written the most professional, scathing, vaguely threatening reply possible and then taken Erik and Darcy out for ice cream in the New Mexican heat. They never received another email after that and Jane had moved from Darcy's 'sort-of-loser-boss' category to 'possible good friend' status. A few life threatening adventures later and they might as well be blood sisters. _Ah the magic of shared trauma_.

The elevator doors slid open and the two met the rest of the team in what was now the designated movie night room.

"Foster! Lewis! About time you got here." Tony grinned from the couch and tossed them both baggies full of toast, a sheet of paper, and a few other odd assortments.

Darcy took in the room full of superheroes and wondered when this had become so normal. That these crazy amazing people were people she just hung out with like it was nbd.

Her eyes scanned the couch and she blinked in surprise.

For the first time Darcy could remember Natasha was not curled up beside Clint in the overstuffed chair.

Instead she was seated next to Tony on the couch, wrapped tightly in a fleece blanket with an open seat beside her. On Tony's other side sat a cheery looking War Machine; Darcy had recently learned his actual name was Jim 'Rhodey'. (What was up with these super people and their names? Jim? _Clinton_? Guess there was a reason they used codenames….) Vision was beside Scarlet Witch on the double loveseat. Clint waved from his usual padded arm chair seemingly not bothered by being separated from Natasha.

Miraculously both Falcon and Steve Rogers had managed to join them for the night. The two were seated on cushions on the floor, Falcon going through the little baggy with Steve who was wearing a dubious expression.

Sharply telling herself not to read too much into it, Darcy sat carefully next to Natasha only to have to scooch up beside her to make room for Jane when she joined them with a large plastic bowl of popcorn.

From under her blanket wrap one of Natasha's pale hands emerged and tossed Darcy a little of her blanket slack. Obligingly, Darcy stretched it over herself to tuck into the warmth. She stubbornly ignored the sudden pounding of her heart.

They watch Rocky Horror Picture Show, a movie Clint had fought for for months. And Darcy had to admit it was incredibly amusing to watch Captain America confusedly throwing toast at the screen at completely wrong times. Darcy rolled her eyes as Dr. Frankfurter snuck into bed with Janet. "Boo! Heteronormativity." She jeered.

Everyone looked at her. "What? You guys don't do that one?"

Jane kicked her and pushed her off the couch with demands for a popcorn refill which she figured was only fair since she had stolen a good half of the bowl.

-….-….-…-

Darcy deliberated for days. She'd gotten stuck on a patch of code and was now having to avoid both her laptop and her incredibly inconvenient 'feelings'. Maybe Vulcans had the right idea…Even if she wanted to do something about it, she argued with herself, what could she do? Invite The Black Widow out to eat? Would Natasha even enjoy that kind of thing? She probably didn't even like woman that way...and even if she did, it was exceedingly unlikely Natasha would be interested in dating someone like Darcy.

Feeling pent up and restless, Darcy wandered around the facility at night like the worlds cuddliest pouty-est ghost.

Early one evening her feet led her back to the training floors of the compound that she hadn't been back to since her quest to find Clint. At the large viewing window she stopped and looked down on the obstacle course. It was alight this time and the full team seemed to be down there.

Training drones swooped all around the padded scaffolding while the Avengers dodged and flew around them. It looked like they were trying to solve some kind of puzzle? Tony and War Machine were working together to 'save' plastic dummy hostages while Natasha, Clint, and Wanda worked to diffuse some fake bomb that needed keys hidden around the arena. Vision floated eerily in the air, relaying everyone's positions while Captain America and Falcon took down the drones. Darcy lost track of time watching them. They were really incredible to see in action (plus she had the bonus now of not having to be simultaneously running for cover.)

The giant countdown clock on the wall froze as the last of the keys was slotted into place. Darcy observed as Natasha rose from her crouched position over the fake bomb to stretch. Clint caught the woman's shoulder and they traded congratulations as the team made their way together.

A beeping from her phone alerted her of a text from Jane. (She had set Jane's alert sound to 'Still Alive' very shortly after meeting her).

J: Girls night still on?

Darcy sent off a quick confirmation and glanced back at the glass. A few of the bots were still flying around and Darcy looked up just in time to see Vision and Captain America both yell warnings to Tony.

Iron Man half spun one way towards Vision then back the other towards Steve, just in time for a bot to ram into his back. War Machine wasted no time in blasting the offending bot to pieces as Tony spun 360 degrees in the air and dropped down to land harshly on his feet. His face plate flew up as Rhodey touched down beside him. He waved his arms around emphatically, gesturing to the slowly descending Vision. Captain America removed his own helmet, whipping an arm crossed his sweaty face. The Scarlet Witch crossed her arms as she joined the group. Natasha's cool eyes bounced from Steve to Tony, the brief smile that had emerged following their victory gone.

Rhodey put an armored hand on Tony's shoulder as Steve looked from Avenger to Avenger, seemingly giving notes on each of their performances. It went on for a few minutes before the team broke apart; Scarlet Witch, Vision, Clint, and Falcon making for the exit as Natasha stepped forward to speak to Steve. Tony clapped Rhodey on the back then shook off his friend to head for a separate exit.

Darcy watched him stomp off in the suit then backed away from the window. She hurried down another corridor and swiftly took the stairs down two flights. Coming out the stair well she caught a flash of Iron Man turning another corner ahead of her. When she reached it herself she turned to find Tony Stark sitting on the ground with his helmet in his hands.

He was staring into the visors empty eyes.

He scowled lowering the helmet when he recognized someone approaching and glared over his shoulder. "Lewis." He said when he recognized her, "What do you want?"

Darcy shrugged and sat down beside him on the cool floor. Tony shook his head in irritation, "Yeah, no. Whatever this is- not in the mood." "Oh come on dude. I'm not going to make you talk about mushy feelings." Darcy assured him.

He shot her an irritated look, "Oh yeah? That's not what this sitting down business isn't a precursor to?"

She let his frustrations run off her like water. "Nah. I just wanted a chance to touch the suit is all. Plus I'm too lazy to stand. Can I?" She asked with her hand poised above the metal arms. With a heaving sigh Tony held out his plated hand and Darcy ran her fingers along the groves in the metal. She took care not to get near the repulsor ports even though they were currently dark.

"What is this? This isn't some weird fetish is it?" Tony demanded meanly. His hair was a dark mess and there were bruised colored circles under his brown eyes.

"I just think it's really cool." Darcy told him honestly as she pulled her hand away.

Neither of them said anything for a few moments.

Iron Man's eyes fell back to those of the helmets. "I used to have someone watching my back." He murmured angrily. It was so soft she was certain she wasn't supposed to hear it.

Darcy almost said 'you still do' before she swallowed the words back. His teammates weren't who he was talking about she knew. "Jarvis" she agreed in realization. Because of course Tony Stark would have had his magical A.I. integrated into his suit. As she had suspected, Jarvis had been more than a security system then. In her mind she saw again that bot slamming into Tony's back.

… _someone to watch his back_ …

Tony's nostrils flared for an instant before he let his head fall back against the wall tiredly. "Yeah…Jarvis. And this is exactly what you said we weren't going to do, beanie baby. Couldn't even last five minutes." He said angrily, clambering to his feet in the armor. Darcy watched him from the floor as he disappeared down the hall.

 _Shit_.

Her phone buzzed again and, trying to shake off the melancholy that was setting in, Darcy sent off another text to tell Jane she was on her way. Locking her phone again, Darcy crawled to her feet and dusted off her jeans. Then she made her way towards the elevators, mind buzzing.

(Around another dark corner Natasha pushed silently off the wall and made for the showers.)


	7. Chapter 6

Darcy did her best to shake off the gloom her run in with Tony had created before she reached Jane's room. She would have to try and patch things up with him later…

Girl's night was a tradition that had begun after the attack of the doom bot in Puente Antiguo.

Jane had been mopey and stressed. She had her notebook back and an encounter with a literal god from another dimension fueling her but the occasional bouts of depression had hit her harder and harder the longer Thor failed to return. So Darcy had rallied. She'd pulled Jane out from under her covers and dragged her to their miserable little couch, popped in a trash movie, poured some cheap wine, and brushed Jane's hair into ridiculous styles for a few good hours.

It had become 'their thing' after that.

Somethings normal and stupid to do after all the insanity they had gone through.

Their one rule was that mopey-ness was absolutely not allowed.

By the time Darcy made it up to knock on Jane's door, her friend had already amassed the required ingredients for a successful Girls' Night; there was a bowl of chips, a plate full of cheese and crackers, a couple bottles of cheap wine, and a small collection of face scrubs, hair brushes, nail polishes, and make-up at the ready. They popped in 1986's Aliens to play in the background as they drank, painted each other's toenails, and planned the downfall of the patriarchy together.

Thankfully, Jane only remembered to pester her once. "So are you going to do anything about this mystery person?" the scientist asked as she finished painting Darcy's pinky toe a sparkly blue. Darcy, whose brain was sufficiently buzzed by that point, considered for a moment and grinned. A beautiful idea taking shape in her fuzzy mind. Then Jane grabbed the hair brush and all was forgotten as they brushed each other's hair and put on facial masks.

For a few hours neither of them thought about superheroes, world ending catastrophes, their messy love lives, or the ever growing feeling that everything was about to come crashing down again…

They were just two regular people enjoying a completely normal evening.

As the wine ran low and the last movies credits began to roll, Darcy helped Jane pick up the trash and hugged her good-night.

She really was very lucky to have Jane, Darcy thought to herself as she opened the door to her own apartment. Ignoring the light switch she slid her shoes off in the dark. Fumbling around, Darcy brushed her teeth wearily and changed quickly into comfortable pajamas.

She was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.

-….-….-…-

The next day Darcy took her lunch-break early and went down to Tony's workshop.

The large automatic doors, that usual slid open as she approached, remained firmly shut as she stepped up in front of them. There was a key pad on the side of the door glowing a faint blue but she had no idea what the code was.

Not feeling particularly hopeful, Darcy tried scanning her ID badge.

The pad beeped but nothing happened. The large metal doors remained firmly in place. Feeling sort of stupid she nocked against the cold steel. Nothing. She nocked again. More nothing.

Darcy sighed and turned away.

Still the week hadn't been a total bust. (Even if she still had absolutely no idea what she was going to do about these _feelings_ she definitely didn't have for Natasha. Nope, not even going there. And she had somehow managed to piss off and possibly ruin her budding friendship with Tony Stark.)

She at least finally knew what she wanted to do with the coding she had managed to salvage.

Now it was just a matter of getting it there.

(' _Someone to watch my back_ ', _someone to snark and banter with, someone to bully and boss him out of his labs, some to remind him to eat,- more a person than a computer….someone to be Tony Stark's Darcy_ …)

-….-….-…-

Life at the Avengers compound continued on as usual for the next week.

Darcy got up in the 'mornings' and worked with an increasingly frustrated Jane in the labs. She would stumble into the kitchen at all hours and occasionally manage to catch Natasha in her usual reading spot in-between her missions. In whatever time constituted her evenings she'd continue work on the code (google was becoming a very dear friend. So much googling. ' _How to code real artificial intelligence step by step guide_ ') and tried to ignore the fact that she hadn't seen Tony since he'd walked away from her.

Friday morning Darcy was seated at the kitchen table for once rather than the island. She sat crisscross on the chair, her feet in a pair of fluffy socks and the rest of her in yoga pants and oversized sweatshirt. She was munching on a bagel with one hand and finishing editing Jane's upcoming speech for one of her science convention's with the other, when Tony entered the room.

In shock, Darcy stared up at him.

He was dressed to impress in a sharp looking suit and a pair of expensive sunglasses. The large dark frames shading his face. The black of his shoes glowed in the light.

His determined evasion of her all week and forced Darcy to consider that she might have actually ruined whatever friendship they had been building. Actually, she had been planning to make a last desperate attack that in the day- lab locks be damned. (At the very least she was going to leave a sticky note stuck to his stupid metal doors.) She had not been expecting him to come to her.

Being faced with him so suddenly, she wasn't sure quite sure what to do.

Darcy awkwardly swallowed her last bite of bagel.

"Catch," he said and tossed something shiny at her.

Darcy's body jerked in surprise but her arms didn't actually make it up to catch anything and so something soft hit her square in the face. It fell into her lap as a second ball hit her.

Yarn, she realized.

"I hear you take commissions." he said like it was a challenge.

"You want a beanie?" she asked in disbelief.

They hadn't spoken or seen each other in over a week and the first thing the man did was hurl yarn at her head?

Tony stuffed his hands into his jackets stiff pockets. "Yep. Was feeling left out." There was something aggressive about the way he was speaking. An underlying tension of challenge that she didn't really understand. Darcy gave him a searching look before shrugging and examining the yarn he'd thrown at her. If he didn't want to talk about their previous discussion, she was cool to just roll with it.

Finding the tail of the yarn she pulled a little free to tug between her fingers experimentally. The balls were red and gold, of course, but it didn't feel like any yarn she had ever worked with before. The odd fibers glinted strangely in the light and felt weird. Soft but bizarrely coarse on the pads of her fingers.

"It's a micro titanium-gold alloy weave. Same stuff as the suit basically."

She nodded distractedly, trying to get a read on him. "So how much will you pay me?" she asked, leaning back in the chair. He was the one to bring up commissions after all, but mainly she wondered what he would do. The man froze for less than a second before he pulled a few bills from his wallet. He tossed them on the table.

Darcy squinted at them- those numbers looked suspiciously large. It had to be shit ton of cash but Darcy didn't touch it. "Don't think that's going to cover it." She told him blithely.

Now the twist of his mouth looked _angry_ but he reached back for his wallet again. Darcy shook her head and pushed the cash back towards him. "Think you owe me a bagel." She said seriously. Tony tilted his head and snatched his glasses from his face to stare with unreadable eyes.

Darcy picked up one of the fresh bagels and waved it at him and after a moment he unbuttoned his jacket with a brisk flourish and dropped into a chair across from her. Taking the bagel from her hand and grabbing the knife from the top of the cream cheese container, he split the soft bread in half and schmeared both halves in the creamy goodness. Then he held out one half to her and deliberately took a liberal bite out of the other. Darcy took the offered half of the bagel and took a large bite of her own.

Tony Stark leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs. Swallowing, he gave a considering look at the pastry remaining in his hand. "This isn't mine. Where did you even get these?" He wondered. The air around him now significantly more relaxed.

"If by 'yours' you mean 'not part of the food you order to fill the kitchens', then no. I get them from a bakery downtown" Darcy shrugged and took another bite.

Both of them ignored the pile of bills sitting on the table.

"What's wrong with my bagels?" he demanded as he added another glop of cream cheese to the side of his bagel.

"Your bagel is no bagel." She informed him "you don't order bagels. You don't even order bread."

The man hummed thoughtfully.

The padding of bare feet approaching had both of them looking towards the kitchen entryway- right as the Black Widow sauntered in.

They stared in mutual surprise.

Natasha was indeed barefoot, but that was hardly the surprising part of her appearance. No, she was also- _wet_?

Her copper hair dripped slightly at the ends.

She was dressed in only an impressively short towel that was tucked around at the front to display a daring amount of cleavage. Ignoring the stares her attire was drawing, the spy headed for the coffee pot and poured herself a full mug.

Natasha turned and leaned casually against the granite counter. She took a large sip from her mug. Tony and Darcy continued to stare in confusion as the Widow offered the two a clever smile.

She wasn't dripping torrents of water or anything but Darcy couldn't help but ask, "Aren't you cold?"

She could see Tony snap his head to look at her out of the corner if her eye but Darcy was pretty distracted because honestly- it was always cold in the Avengers Compound. The AC had been stuck on what felt like full blast since the day she'd moved in. Darcy had taken to sleeping in socks most nights.

Natasha blinked at her for a moment, smile morphing just slightly, although Darcy couldn't quite read the shift. "I'm Russian. We're used to the cold."

Thankfully before Darcy could do something stupid (like offer Natasha her oversized hoodie) they were interrupted by a disgusting semi-wet sounding bang from above the fridge. There was a curse and muffled banging as a slow gloriously triumphant smile spread across Darcy's face. Natasha furrowed her brow, eyeing the top of the fridge as she took another sip of coffee. Tony spun on the spot to stare in the direction of the sound with a deep frown, one hand gripping his wristwatch tightly. "What the hell?" he demanded.

The curses slowly faded way. Natasha observed Darcy curiously as the brunette took a victorious final bite of her bagel.

Tony scowled at the both of them, "No. Really, what the hell was that?"

The Black Widow swallowed the last of her cup thoughtfully. "I'm more curious what he did to deserve it."

Darcy said nothing, basking in the throes of vengeance.

A few moments later Clint stomped around the corner to the kitchen, hands covered in a black tar. He scowled at Darcy. "Really, Lewis?" he demanded, shaking his black goop covered hands around in a righteous display. "Really? You messed with my vent covers?"

Oh, Darcy had indeed messed with his vent covers. Not only had she pasted the black sticky goop on the backs of random covers but she had also taken care to gorilla glue a select few of them closed. Some, like the one in the kitchen that she knew through carful observation he used frequently, she had done both to.

It was a fair price she figured- those bruises had taken weeks to fade from her forearms.

"Vengeance is patience, _'Clinton'_." Darcy smirked at his disgruntled expression. Natasha gave a surprised but regal nod and raise her coffee mug in agreement.

"You been crawling around in my vents, Barton?" Tony demanded slightly incredulous.

Natasha poured herself another cup from the coffee maker, "Don't take it personally, Stark. Clint never outgrew playground tunnels." She took a sip of her fresh drink, completely immune to the grumpy glare Hawkeye gave her.

"Oh thanks, Nat." he grumbled which had Natasha grinning innocently. Darcy watched him stomp over to the sink and turn on the faucet with his elbow.

"Do you call her Nat because its short for Natasha or do you call her Nat because you think she's like a gnat?" Darcy wondered.

Clint turned and splashed water ineffectually at her, "Stop trying to get me in trouble!"

Behind him Natasha was grinned.

"Tony! There you are."

Everyone's heads swiveled to the entrance as Rhodey strolled in and paused. Darcy wondered what he had to think: Tony in a suit with a glob of cream cheese on his goatee, Natasha still wet in her tiny towel, Clint scrubbing black goop from his hands, and herself with a wet shirt and a lap full of metal yarn. The man took it all in for a moment as Tony exclaimed brightly at his arrival. "Rhodey! Honey Bear, Come take a bite of my bagel!" he called, shaking the pastry with a wiggle of his eyebrow.

The poor man shook his head exasperatedly. "Why you got to make it weird man?" Rhodey asked even as he took an obliging step forward. He ripped a section free and popped it into his mouth. "Okay, no. That is amazing."

"Yes they are." Darcy said absentmindedly, eyes on Natasha as she finished her second cup of coffee. She was speaking softly to Clint as the man struggled to get the black out from under his nails. Her eyes fell to the clock and, realizing she was going to be late if she didn't leave, Darcy stood up and collected the two balls of yarn.

There was warm relief in her stomach as she called a hurried farewell to everyone and made her way towards the elevators.

Just another day at work.

-….-….-…-

Darcy was close. So close. Her heart pounded- face undoubtedly flushed. Her fingers stilled and she flopped back on the bed.

Darcy glared at the laptop. She was stuck again. With a frown she ran her eyes over the coding again. With a sigh she saved (multiple times as was her habit) before closing out and opening up Tumblr.

She scrolled her dashboard for a few minutes. She reblogged an artfully shot photo someone had managed to capture of Thor flying overhead. Then she amused herself by looking through the wonderfully hilarious posts crossing Tony Stark and House Stark in the wake of the latest Game of Thrones season. Darcy resolved to get Tony a house Stark banner just for her own amusement.

She flicked through the general Avengers tag, liking and reblogging as she went, until a rather long post caught her eye. It was some kind of angry rant. She read through it then opened up google to search for 'Sokovia Accords'. Under some horrific pictures of the damaged Sokovian landscape were a few political articles.

The accords turned out to be an up and coming treaty that was going to be propositioned before the United Nations. Mainly it seemed to be centering on the concerns and regulations around 'super groups'. She scrolled threw the news for a few moments. Frowning slightly she pulled out her phone and searched her contacts for Natasha's number. (Thanks to the now automated group texts that went out for movie night reminders Darcy now had all the Avengers cell numbers. Luckily she had managed to control herself so far and keep texting heroes to a bare minimum.).

D: have you seen about that un treaty?

Texting any of the Avengers was a bit of a tossup anyway. Someone them would not have their phones on or available to them for days at a time. She was surprised therefore to feel the almost immediate buzz of a response.

N: ?

D: callrd sokovia accords. Its about you guys.

D: you might want to read it

Finding the article on her phone she linked it and sent that too.

D: (attachment)

There was no immediate response this time so Darcy went back to reread the article. Then she looked up two others and read those. Fifteen minutes later her phone buzzed again.

N: what do you think?

D: honestly? Surprised it hasn't come up sooner.

D: Avengers used to by run by sheild/government right? Now your like a international civilian military group thing? Don't think there's ever been anything like you guys before. Got to be causing all kinds of oversite questions.

Darcy's phone was silent for a few more minutes.

N: Thank you for the heads up.

D: no problem! Still just a proposal for now but …it's interesting.

Her phone fell still. Darcy deliberated for a moment with a frown then forwarded the article to Tony too.

D: un treaty about you guys? Have you seen?

D: (attachment)

Tony responded after a moment with a thumbs up emoji.

T: Legal departments on top of it already.

Well that was good. Stark Industries had famously vicious lawyers. They had been known to make people cry in court. With a shrug she headed back to Tumblr.

There was a surprisingly detailed ink drawing of the hulk she shared. A few candid photo's she liked absentmindedly. 'You deserve to be happy' a gif of sparkling letters flashed at her. Darcy scrolled down past it then back up.

'You deserve to be happy'

Fuck it.

She took her phone back out.

D: hey if yor going to be bck for the weekend would you be up for dping something?

She typed quickly and hit send before she could change her mind.

This was so stupid. Darcy hid her face in one of her extra fluffy pillows. What was she even doing? She didn't even know if Natasha was interested in woman that way.

 _Urrgggg_

She felt her phone buzz again in her hand.

N: what did you have in mind?

Heart pounding a bit Darcy went into her favorites list and copied the url to send Natasha.

It had taken hours of skilled googleing to find the right place. She'd gone over several locations- comparing reviews and options. The hardest part was finding a place that would work with just two people but she thought that maybe…this was something they could do that Natasha might even enjoy…

D: (link)

Darcy stared at her text box as a realization washed over her. Natasha didn't like closed spaces. She had shared that while on their walk at the bakery.

Well done, moron.

Cursing she started to type as quickly as she could and still make it somewhat legible.

D: ive donr similar stuff becore but I knkw you dont like small spces. I dont think it will be tooo claustrophobic but if its not your thing or your busy then its nbd.

She hit send just as a text came back from Natasha.

N: should for back for Friday. Pending no threats of global destruction. Saturday?

Saturday?

In a bit of a daze she slowly typed out her affirmative. Every second she waited for the agreement to be rescinded but it wasn't. All that came back in was a little smiling emoji. She somehow had managed actual plans to a maybe, sort-of, possible, date with the Black Widow. Caught between elation and horror she stared at her phone screen. Oh god, what had she done?!


	8. Chapter 7

Friday was horrible.

Darcy slept through her alarm and clocked in to work late and had to spend the day color coding Excel spreadsheets with a migraine. Someone ate the last of the mac and cheese she had been planning to eat for lunch and she spilled white-out on her pants. She gets several paper cuts as she files and had to restart her computer twice.

Generally a pretty shitty start to the day. Still, excited for the evening, Darcy pushed stubbornly through and was able to get almost everything she wanted to finish done before she left for the day.

And so it was with unusually good cheer for such a crappy day, and just a little jittery, that she left the labs and headed upstairs to get ready for Friday's now traditional movie night.

Darcy bounced in to the living room with just a hint of make-up on her face. She had on her nice, yet still casual, checkerboard shirt dress and pair of curly earrings.

The room was eerily empty.

Darcy flicked the lights on and stood in the center of the silent room. She sat herself awkwardly on the couch to wait- she wasn't that early she didn't think...Darcy checked her phone. She had one missed text from Natasha that must have come in while she was in the shower. It just said 'Running late.'

Darcy felt her good mood evaporate shockingly fast.

She had known Jane was going to have to skip out on the movie this week. There was some meeting go on about an upcoming conference that was begging for Jane to give a speech or something. But not only was Natasha not able to make it, but it also seemed that for the first time since their little tradition had started, no one else had managed to show up either.

Darcy sat in the quiet for a good ten minutes…waiting….

Irritated that she'd spent so much time getting ready (panicking), Darcy huffed and trudged back to her room to mope. Letting the door close harsher than normal behind her, she kicked off her shoes and headed for the bathroom. She removed the pair of silver earrings and began scrubbing the now pointless make-up off her face when her bedroom door swung opened.

Her head jerked and her thoughts flew into a panic- where had she last left her taser?

"Tones, you can't just enter people's rooms without knocking!"

"Of course I can. I own the building." She could hear the unbothered response as she whipped desperately away at the water stinging her eyes. Tony's face popped abruptly around the bathroom door. "There you are Lewis!" The man frowned at her mascara dripping face. "What the hell are you doing? You're late for movie night."

She felt her irritation drain away like the water rushing down the still running sink.

Tony's expectant face raised an eyebrow at her. A cut just above his eyebrow was a raw but healing red. Darcy bit back a sigh. These people were superheroes. They were busy doing extremely dangerous crap and they still tried to find time to do stupid shit like a Friday movie night with people like her.

 _Quite acting like a brat_ , Darcy chastised herself.

Taking a deep breath she whipped the dripping streaks of black off her cheeks. "Give me a sec. I'm ganna change into PJs and I'll be there….yah creep."

"Well hurry up!" He told her as Rhodey pulled ineffectually at his arm.

The other man shook his head at her, "I'm sorry for him. No manners."

"Manners? What about her? She's like twenty minutes late!" Tony protested indignantly.

"He has no sense of boundaries."

Darcy laughed a little as the door clicked shut- she could hear the muffled good natured arguing continuing from behind the wood. Quickly pulling on a pair of comfortable but presentable pajamas and throwing her hair up in a messy bun, Darcy headed after the two.

They watch Iron Giant and by the end Darcy has another text from Natasha.

N: What time did you plan for tomorrow?

With a bit of a sinking feeling Darcy replied with the time she had scheduled.

Expecting that things were going to have to be cancelled Darcy avoided checking the next text she got back for a hot coco run. When she finally did cave and check her phone again it was much better news than she had expected.

N: I may not make it back beforehand but I will be there.

D: You sure? We can rearrange if that works better.

N: I will be there.

So all things considered, Friday turned out alright in the end.

-….-….-…-

The next afternoon Darcy stood awkwardly on the sidewalk under a bright sunny sky. Hand resting on her phone in her pocket, to be sure she'd feel if it vibrated. She shifted her feet. A few groups of people push past her and the cars rushed by. Darcy debated with herself whether she should wait inside or not.

Darcy pulled out her phone to check the time. She'd been standing there for awhile but she'd gotten there really early too.

Still seven minutes till their set meeting time.

Hyper vigilant as most women were to such things, Darcy kept half an eye on the older dude who was loitering just a little further down the sidewalk. He was slowly stepping ever closer to her. Deciding that meant she should probably go wait inside Darcy turned to make for the entrance behind her.

"Hey pretty lady!" the man who had to be in his late 50s called to her.

Annoyed, she intended to ignore him until he purposely stepped to block her path. Darcy put a hand on her purse- she was ganna tase the shit out of the guy if he touched her.

"You lost, pretty lady?"

"No, she's not."

Natasha's cold voice cracked like a stinging whip.

The Black Widow was suddenly coming up beside her, arms crossed and exuding an absolutely terrifying atmosphere. It was something in the in the lines of her eyes. The curve of her almost sultry smile that felt like she might just rip his throat out with her teeth... Darcy could feel the goosebumps tingle down her arms. Darcy found herself remembering suddenly just what Natasha was capable of. She'd seen the footage after all; of Natasha ripping through alien soldiers like a scalpel through paper. There was a good chance she could rip a dudes throat out with her teeth. That might be a thing Natasha had even done before.

Giving the man one last cursory glance, Natasha dismissed him in favor of Darcy. "You ready?"

Darcy nodded, grinning, and the two pushed past the stammering man to make their way inside.

"Sorry I'm late." The red head apologized as the climbed up a flight of carpeted stairs.

"Trouble with customs?" Darcy teased.

She felt giddy in a way she hadn't felt in a long time. Part of her had still expected Natasha to cancel or be pulled away for some emergency…and well, she'd missed her.

Darcy really hoped her face wasn't obviously flushed.

"Something like that." The woman agreed vaguely.

Pulling open the large black door that chimed pleasantly, the two women stepped inside. The check in front desk was wide with an open laptop and a bubbly looking teenager behind it. Her black shirt had a red puzzle piece with the words 'Puzzle Room Escapes' printed on it.

Darcy stepped up to the counter. "Hey, we have a 3 o'clock room booked."

"Oh great! Welcome! Let me just get your names and I'll get you all checked in."

Verifying her booking while Natasha observed the spacious room, the woman eventually stepped out from behind the desk and led them towards a small seating arrangement. Darcy and Natasha both sat down beside each other on a pair of puff stools.

"All right! Welcome you two! So, my name is Amber and I will be your game master today. I'll be monitoring your game and giving you clues if and when you need them. Have either of you been here before?"

Natasha shook her head gracefully. Her eyes scanned the room again while maintaining polite attention on Amber.

"I've done escape rooms before but this is my first time here." Darcy told their host.

Amber smiled genially at them both, pigtail bouncing slightly as she shifted feet. "Well awesome! So glad to have you both here. So basically what you have to do is use clues hidden around the room to escape. The door you enter from will not be the door you are trying to escape from and it will remain unlocked in case of a fire or other emergency. That all make sense? Just a few other housekeeping rules- please do not break or dismantle anything in the room. You will not need to fiddle with electrical sockets or climb into the ceiling to win. You shouldn't need any brute strength to escape. A TV screen in the room will display your time remaining. As I will be watching you play, if you get really off track I can send you clues that will appear on the screen but you only get 3. Sound good?"

At their nods of agreement Amber led them down a hall to a gold painted door. It shimmered under the office lighting with intricate black hieroglyphics painted down its sides. Beside it stood a column of box lockers that Amber indicated with a hand. "You're welcome to put your purses and phones in a locker if you'd like."

Natasha took Darcy's purse and her own small bag and placed them in the top locker.

Amber gave a little clap once she had their attention again.

"So, let me give you a little bit of backstory about your room. You two are archaeologists who have come to Egypt to see your colleague's latest amazing discovery. When you arrive however he is nowhere be found. Venturing into the tomb you find his journal abandoned. Sensing something is wrong you try to turn back only to find yourselves trapped! You will have forty five minutes to use the clues in your colleague's journal and those hidden about the room to discover what happened to your friend and escape the mummy's curse! Any questions? You guys ready?"

Natasha nodded seriously.

"Oh yeah. We got this!" Darcy grinned. Her heart was already pumping with focused excitement. It had been a long time since she had gone an escape room but she had only ever failed that first room she tried and she was anxious to keep her record. With Natasha with her it might even be possible to try scoring a time record for the room!

With that the door was opened and the two women entered curiously.

Darcy ran her experienced eye over the dimly lit room. The most eye catching thing was the large slab 'sarcophagus' that was up against the wall opposite them. To the left was a small wall-mounted TV screen and a chest with a padlock. To the right was a bookcase containing scrolls. On the floor before them was a note book and a pair of pencils.

"Good luck!" Amber called and the door snapped closed.

The TV screen flashed on and the countdown began as Darcy raced into action. She grabbed the note book and went to examine the chest while Natasha stepped over to the sarcophagus.

The note book had a few pages of drawings, some foe journal entries Darcy skipped for now, and some riddles. She crouched down to examine the lock on the chest. "Looks like we need some kind of code word. This lock uses letters. Has to be six letters." She said.

"There's a place here for something to be inserted." Natasha told her as she ran her hands over the top of the foe stone.

Both of them went to the bookcase. "These scrolls have symbols on the ends." Darcy observed. She gathered all the marked ones together. Natasha pushed aside some unmarked scrolls on a higher shelf and pulled free a puzzle box that had been hidden in the back.

She turned the box over in her hands. "I'll work on this. Check the journal to see if it has anything about the scrolls?"

Darcy flipped through the pages of the journal again, more carefully this time. Several of the riddles seemed to reference the symbols on the scroll ends. Turning back to the beginning she started at the first riddle she could find. 'Ra's rising sun is one you'll need, on top of which there should be three.'

Easy enough.

She grabbed the one with the symbol like a sun and laid it out. When unraveled the paper had a few dark discernible lines on it.

'The eye of Horus looks down upon the world of the dead but never do they touch.'

'Anubis's scales are the entry to the underworld and are the bottom as such.'

'Ammut's crocodile may appear anywhere but below the land of the dead.'

Okay. This was going to get complicated.

Darcy grabbed one if the pencils and sat down on the floor to get to work on a scrap paper. Above her she heard a click and she looked up.

Natasha was holding the two halves of the now open puzzle box. "Got it." She smirked.

"What's inside?" Darcy asked.

The red head removed something from the box, turning it over in her hands. "Looks like a tile, for the sarcophagus I think, a key….and a flashlight?" she clicked the back button and a purple light streamed from the end. "Blacklight." She confirmed.

"I'm almost done with these, just give me another minute." Darcy told her. Finishing up the last riddle on the scrap paper, she then unfurled and rearranged the scrolls. "The last riddle said 'When the gods look down together the truth shines through' so I am guessing…"Natasha crouched down on her haunches beside her to watch. Darcy pressed the layers of paper together and the black marks formed the word 'Osiris'.

"Has to be the code for the chest!"

Natasha nodded and hurried over to the gold painted chest. Quickly shifting the letters on the lock it clicked open and the lid swing open easily. Inside the chest was another gold box, a small padlock swinging from the front, another tile on a decorated cushion, and a laminated note.

Natasha grabbed the tile. "These all have different hieroglyphics." She commented, running a thumb over the symbol.

"This is locked…" Darcy said as she removed the smaller gold box from the chest. "Does that key you found fit?"

The key from the puzzle box did indeed fit the small padlock and it opened to reveal yet another hieroglyph tile. "That's how many now? Three?"

Meanwhile, Natasha had wasted no time in snatching up the note. Her eyes scanned over the words quickly. "We need to use the blacklight under the torches."

Darcy hadn't even really noticed them but a glance around the room now highlighted the foe torch lanterns that lined the walls. Natasha sprung smoothly into action; running the blacklight under each wall sconce illuminated a hidden symbol and roman number in a purple glow.

"It's the symbols on the tiles!" Darcy quickly jotted down the symbols and their corresponding numbers.

But they had three tiles and four hidden symbols.

Confused, Darcy looked around the room for something they could have missed.

Natasha seemed to know however because she walked confidently over to the back of the door they had come in through. There was a mosaic like patterned pieced on it that Darcy had dismissed as pure decoration. But the pieces of it moved, she realized, as Natasha quickly pushed the tiles up, over, down, over, down. Her hands never paused until- one popped off into her waiting hand.

"Got it." Natasha purred.

They placed the tiles in numerological order by the numbers they had found into the shallow indents on the face off the sarcophagus. Nothing happened.

"Check the journal." Natasha recommended swiftly.

Flipping through the pages again Darcy found another riddle that looked like it might fit. Supposedly solving it would allow them to spell out the mummy's true name and break the curse that had trapped them. Hopefully that meant it would be the final puzzle. She was incredibly conscious of the numbers counting ever downward on the T.V.

Natasha stood beside her and the two quickly broke down and solved the riddle.

They rearranged the tiles again.

The sarcophagus cracked open, dramatic music playing from some hidden speaker, to reveal not a mummy but a dried body of the professor they were meant to be searching for. It was covered in those fake spider webs Darcy's aunt had loved to use for Halloween. Darcy had forgotten all about that part of the story in her focus to get out of the room. There was a snorted laugh and she looked over at Natasha.

"That's not at all how a desiccated corpse looks." The Natasha said with a touch of amusement in her voice. Her mouth snapped shut and she looked quickly up at Darcy.

"Looks does sort of look like something from the Halloween Outlet." She agreed, "But I think we found our way out of here."

One of the bookcases behind them had slid to the left and revealed another door. They crossed the room quickly together, footsteps in a hurried sync.

Darcy's heart was pounding noticeably again.

Natasha slid the secret door open and there stood Amber. She greeted them with an impressed smile as they stepped out into the hall. "I think you guys might have beaten the record for fastest time solved!"

Literally doing a little jump for joy, Darcy turned and high-fived a very amused looking Natasha.

"Yes!"

Her grin only increased when Natasha actually pulled her in for a hug. Darcy rested her chin on the woman's shoulder. The Widow melt like fresh lavender and somethings faintly smoky (though for all she knew it could very well be smoke...What had she been up to on her last mission?). Darcy fought the urge to close her eyes and just...stay there. The high of their win was slowly coming down. She didn't want this night to end. Didn't really want to let go. But Darcy dropped her hands and stepped back with a cheerful smile despite the twisting in her chest. She _liked_ Natasha but Natasha didn't like her. Not like that. And this had been fun. She would just have to learn to be satisfied with that.


	9. Chapter 8

Outside the building the air was cool. There was a hint of moisture hanging in the air and a comfortable light breeze blowing. Natasha and Darcy walked side by side back down the mostly empty street to the parking lot.

The skyscrapers were all lit up like humongous Christmas trees.

Still thrilled by their victory Darcy regaled an amused Natasha with stories of her previous escape rooms. Like the time she and her old college friend had made it with just 52 seconds to spare and that other time she had dragged Jane to a room and they had stumbled upon solutions to half the clues by accident. The drive back to the compound was mostly quiet except for the brief period when 'Eye of the Tiger' came on the radio and Darcy was compelled to sing the whole thing. It was basically a law she had explained to Natasha.

The Russian parked the car with superb skill and they made their way inside and over to the elevators. At the metal doors Natasha paused and turned to Darcy.

"This was a date, right?" She demanded seriously.

Darcy flushed a little.

But, this was fine. Good even. This stupid indecisive waffling wasn't Darcy's usual style either. "I was hoping you would like it to be." She confessed and hopped against hope that this wasn't destined to crash and burn.

If Natasha was asking that was a good thing, right?

 _'Please let it be a good thing.'_

Natasha nodded, green eye fluorescent and catlike in the low light. "Good. Then we need to talk." She said, clicking the elevators call button swiftly.

The ride up past in silence. Natasha stood boldly in the center with her arms crossed. Darcy whipped her sweaty hands on the insides of her pockets from the corner. When they stepped out, Darcy dutifully followed after the spy.

They came up Clint, Flacon, and War Machine, avidly discussing some sports game down one of the halls.

As Natasha stomped passed Falcon broke off the boy's conversation to greet them. "What's going on with you two?" he asked curiously. Clint's eyes flickered from Natasha to Darcy with a pleased expression on his face. War Machine quickly stepped out of Natasha unfaltering path. "They're dating" Clint smirked with his hands in his pockets.

"Right. At least, I think we might be?" Darcy confirmed, quickly following after the unpausing red head.

"Wait, what?" Falcon cried after them.

Down another hallway Natasha unlocked an unmarked door. Darcy set cautious feet inside, and her eyes widened when she realized this must be Natasha's room. Infinitely curious she peered around the space. It was mostly bland, beige walls and soft cream carpet. Here and there however were specks of Natasha; a pair of white slippers with little bows on top were tucked beside the bed, a shoe rack filled with knives hung off the back of her closet door, and a lilac scented candle was placed on her armoire. Natasha turned to face her and the two woman stood a few feet apart. Natasha's eyes dark and determined. "Just to be clear, I'll ask again. Do you wish to engage in a relationship with me? Even knowing all the risks that will entail?"

"I-yeah. Yes."

The other woman's face softened a little but she didn't step closer. "I've done a lot of bad things, Darcy. More than you can imagine. Killed a lot of people. I'm trying to do the right things now but that doesn't erase the things I did." She stated bluntly. "And I am still involved in a lot of high risk missions. That's not going to stop."

The brunette shook her head, "I know that. That's not why- I know. And I get it. Or I get it as much as it's possible to."

"And you want to try this anyway?"

Darcy sighed. "I do but- if we're going to try and make this _something_ then you have to know…" she trailed off. In the wake of Natasha's speech her own hesitations felt…hollow. Stupid.

The tension had drained from Natasha shoulders. She moved a step closer, hands falling from their crossed position and she tilted her head in invitation. Darcy tapped her foot in stress and shifted uncomfortably.

When Natasha could talk so bluntly, so openly about the things she had done- the whole thing felt so stupid. It was just that this was always the hardest part. The teeter over the _precipice_. An inevitable hole that might swallow her.

It was never simple, it was never smooth. Ever. Every damn time she did this she had to give a goddamn seminar about what she the hell she was talking about. It sucked. It sucked all kinds of dick, she thought ironically. And the last time she had tried something like this? That had been a lesson in spectacular disaster.

She swallowed and pried her mouth open through force of will, "I'm asexual. Autochorissexual specifically. Panromantic."

Jaw achingly tight she forced herself to keep talking because those words were _never_ enough. No one _ever_ knew what they meant. "It means I enjoy a good book of erotica and a night with myself but I'm never ever going to want to have sex with you- or anyone else. It means sex is hot as long as it's imagined and those fantasies don't include myself. Ever." Darcy kept her eyes on the top of Natasha's head. She'd never noticed before but she was actually an inch or so taller than the assassin.

 _Keep talking Darcy, just keep talking._

"No it's not a hormone imbalance. It's not that I've only had bad sex. I just have no interest and actually find it kind of repulsive IRL. Your gorgeous, I know that. It doesn't matter. I won't ever want you like that."

"So what do you want?"

Darcy swallowed again. After the last time, she had sworn never to date anyone unless they were asexual too. What could she offer Natasha that would bridge this gap, replace this thing everyone else seemed to think was so absolutely crucial?

"Us. Hanging out. Snuggling. Just…being together." There was so much more than that in Darcy's mind but the words were so hard to find. Trusting each other, whispering secrets together in the dark, brushing each other's hair, curling close together by a fire. Knowing you would have someone there beside you, someone to _trust_ , even if everything else was going to shit. Intimacy could be found so many other ways. She knew this, she _knew_ it. Felt it in her bones. It was just that no one else seemed to get it. Not if they were going to be denied the one thing Darcy wouldn't give them.

One of Natasha small hands came up and gently ran through Darcy's dark hair and their eyes finally regained contact. The spy was quiet, thoughtful…considering Darcy's speech seriously. And Darcy finds she's almost relieved, that she's not just being brushed off or hollowly ensured.

"I have murdered people. Manipulated and killed those who opened their hearts to me...that is something I live with. Something I occasionally still have to do…If you can live with that…" Natasha trailed off. With a softly frustrated sigh Natasha stared at her. "If I wanted sex, I could find it anywhere," she said truthfully, "This- this is something more I think."

Darcy's eyes were wet. She felt a little numb. "Are you sure about that? Because when I say never, I mean it. It won't ever happen. And I don't want to share-"

Natasha grabbed her wrist and slowly pulled her towards the bed. She pushed Darcy very gently by the shoulders on to the soft gray duvet.

Her mouth snapped shut as Natasha pulled first Darcy's shoes off, then her own. Natasha slid the lights down to low as Darcy's eyes followed her and then crawled up on the bed beside brunette. Hesitantly, and more then slow enough for Darcy to pull away if she wanted, Natasha wrapped herself around her.

"Is this okay?" Natasha asked quietly.

Darcy gripped onto one of Natasha's hand, "Yeah. This…this is better than okay."

-….-….-…-

Darcy's was beginning her junior year of college when she met him in Animal Behavior 101. They had hit it off so well at first, trading meme's and dirty jokes as easily as breath. It was the second time in her life that Darcy had ever been interested in having a romantic relationship with someone and the first time since she found the label 'asexual' online in her senior year of high school.

Things went well for a while of course.

It's a few weeks into their tentative relationship when she tells him that she's asexual. He doesn't understand really, has never heard the term except for asexual reproduction. Things are a little awkward afterward but Darcy had expected that. She sent him an email with a list of sites and resources- things to help him understand who she is and that it had absolutely nothing to do with him. That she still loved him. Then she stepped back and gave him space- waits to hear if he can still love her.

Things seem to sort themselves out though and she was dizzy with relief.

When he invites to a concert with a group of his friends, she thought they had passed the hurdle. He picked her up and they drove to his house to meet up with a group of his friends. Together they all piled into the biggest car and took off for the stadium. The concert was tons of fun; loud music, booze, and dancing. It was after that the problems start.

They all drove back to his house and his friends all took off, one by one, until it was just him and her. Then he tells her he's too tired to drive her home.

At first she's irritated because she has class in the early morning, which she had explicitly told him. He had _promised_ to get her back to the dorm. Said it wouldn't be a problem. Then she's furious because he suggests she just stay the night with him…in his bed.

Warning bells flash in her mind and she calls her mom to come pick her up. Her mom drives her back to the dorm and it's three A.M. by the time she crawls back into her room. Her roommate is fast asleep. Darcy runs water over her face in the dark and crawls into bed. She rolls over to face the wall and feels…dirty.

And her thoughts run in circles.

Had he done that on purpose? Had he purposely set her up to try and trap her at his house? Was it her fault for not being affectionate enough? Had he even meant anything malicious by it all? Was she just over reacting because it was a topic that was so sensitive to her?

The next day her social media feeds have exploded- anonymously sent pictures of porn, messaged telling her she's a bitch and should kill herself. Gossip spreads through the school like strangling ivy.

She deletes all her social media accounts and drops her science class.

When she continues to ignore the rumors, things escalate. The first time she opens her dorm door to find it covered in post-it notes of hate, she closes the door again and skips class to buy a taser.

She never spoke to him after that and when things at the school continue to be awful she transfers. She gets new social media accounts and takes an internship to make up for the lost science credits. She meets Jane and then Thor and all of her previous problems become distant memories except within the deepest parts of her heart.

-….-….-…-

Waking up snuggled up in Natasha's arms had to be the best feeling in the entire world.

For the life of her she couldn't imagine anything matching up to it. She was snuggled up with the Black Widow. _With Natasha_ , she thought happily as her eyes creaked open. She hadn't slept that well in years and the warm heat was only encouraging her to fall back asleep. It was still pretty dark in the room but there was a dull light coming from somewhere nearby. She blinked a little.

"What are you looking at?" Darcy muttered, still in a sleepy haze.

Natasha was propped mostly upright on a mound of pillows. Her curly hair a tangled mess and the slightest smudge of eyeliner under her eyes. One of her hands was still under the blankets, caught up in the tangled mess of limbs and bedding. The other was scrolling slowly down her phone screen.

"I'm gathering intel."

In contrast Natasha sounded completely awake. Darcy frowned a bit- had Natasha slept at all? Maybe she didn't rest well with others wrapped around her. That would make sense right?

It sounded suspiciously like the sort of thing a paranoid super spy wouldn't enjoy.

Slowly, attempting to act like she wasn't completely embarrassed by having slept soundly and unwantedly on top of a woman she very, _very_ much liked; Darcy began to roll away and detangle herself from the limbs and sheets.

"Do you need the bathroom?"

Darcy froze. "What?-um. No?"

"Then stay."

Natasha finally looked up from her screen to meet Darcy's eyes.

Darcy hesitantly leaned back on the bed again. Natasha cocked her head to the side, clicking her phone dark. The room was plunged into the shadowed light of early dawn- only the beginning tendrils of the sunrise lighting the clouds. The A.C. still felt like it was running full blast but it was warm and soft under the covers.

"Do you consider kissing to be sexual?"

"Uh- Wha?"

"I want to know where your boundaries stand. Based on our current positions I can assume that you enjoy cuddling well enough. What about kissing?"

No one had ever asked her that that kind of thing before.

Darcy closed her eyes, feeling the swell of emotion bubbling in her chest. It was something between sorrow and the highest of joys.

It was the type of question she had spent a lot of time thinking about once she had realized she was asexual. What did she want? What could she stand? Kissing was a tricky subject. She liked the way it looked in movies most of the time. She fantasized about characters kissing each other, sometimes in her dreams- fantasized even about herself. Dreamed about kissing and enjoying it.

But reality was never like her dreams. Darcy had been kissed quite a few times in her life. When her first few kisses with men sent her stomach rolling, Darcy had thought the problem might be the _men_ in the equation. So she'd tried a few times with woman. It had been no less gross- the wet sodden lips pushing against her own. It was…vile.

"I don't mind like, pecks on the checks or even on the lips. As long as it's like, brief, and not like, making out. Tongue is just…no." She stuttered.

Was Natasha going to kiss her?

But she didn't. The other woman just nodded.

"Alright then." She was quite for a moment. The green eyes roamed thoughtfully over Darcy's face. "Most people don't wake up when they go to bed beside me." Natasha contemplated curiously.

Morning Natasha was more talkative than Darcy had ever seen her.

"So you really do the 'black widow' type killing stuff too?"

Natasha gave a half hum and a half sigh. "I told you I've done a lot of bad things. Some of it for very bad people. Does that bother you?"

Darcy considered honestly for a moment.

On the one hand, yeah. It was scary as fuck to think about the things the Black Widow must have done to earn her skills and reputation. On the other, Darcy was best friends with a thousands of year old god who had more than once gleefully described, in great detail, what it felt like to have a man's head crack into mush under the weight of a swung hammer. And no matter how good she was, it was actually highly unlikely that Natasha's body count was higher than Thor's.

"I can't have children either."

Darcy pushed up onto her forearms in surprise.

As almost always, Natasha's voice was casual and blunt. "They sterilize you. In the Red Room, where I was trained." Darcy found the hand Natasha still had under the blanket and squeezed gently, unsure of what to say. "It made missions easier. One less thing to worry about…Still…" The woman trailed off.

Darcy linked the fingers of their hands together.

"…thank you…for telling me." Darcy whispered back carefully.

Natasha tilted her head, a smile curling fondly around her lips.

"You missed movie night." Darcy says suddenly. "Want to watch one now?"

Slipping her hand from Darcy's, Natasha unfurled gracefully from the bed. She was still dressed in the jeans and black shirt from yesterday. The woman sauntered over to her closet as Darcy forced herself from her cocoon of warmth. In agreement to meet up again in the movie room, Darcy meandered back to her room to change while Natasha brushed her teeth and slipped into sweatpants.

By the time Darcy made it to the living room, knitting bag in hand as she was almost done with her little gift for Tony, Natasha had a movie on pause and was fetching a blanket from one of the chests.

Darcy sat down on the couch and jumped a little in pleasant surprise when Natasha returned and sat beside her, turned and propped the back of her knees over the couches arm and let her head lay in Darcy's lap. The brunette slowly raised a hand to run though the locks of curly red hair as the blanket was unfolded.

The two settled in deeper as the movie was resumed. Darcy almost laughed out loud when she realized what Natasha had chosen; Hot Fuzz.

They were maybe twenty minutes in before someone else found them.

"Tasha!" the voice of Clint called from behind them.

Darcy froze. Did Natasha want other people knowing they were together? They were together now, right? That was a thing now?

Face fixed on the screen Natasha raised a foot and waived it daintily in greeting.

Okay so apparently being seen like this was okay.

Darcy hesitated and then shook her head. She was over thinking this. "Do you want to join us?"

Clint glanced at the screen, looked briefly at Natasha, and then smiled back at Darcy. "Sure." He shrugged.

It had been awhile since she had last seen Clint, Darcy realized looking at him as he sat down. A good long while in fact. She would have thought the two of them had been out on a mission together but a cursory glance told Darcy that that was unlikely. Clint was sporting a fairly decent tan that had turned him a golden-ish color. Natasha meanwhile had maintained her pale skin. Also, Clint usually came back from missions with at least one noticeable injury- of which there were currently none.

On the screen something exploded into a ball of blazing fire. "Just like Budapest." Clint remarked fondly.

On Darcy's lap Natasha hummed absentmindedly. "You and I remember Budapest very differently." She said in tone that Darcy immediately knew was loaded with some double meaning.

"What happened in Budapest?"

Clint gave Natasha a flickering look.

The red head stretched and turned slightly like an overgrown cat, almost purring in contentment. She must have given Clint some kind of kind of look in return though because he grinned and leaned forward on his forearms. Natasha captured one of Darcy's dropped hands and put it back on her hair, evidently her sign that she wished the head scratching to continue.

"Alright, so, we get dropped off by helicopter a couple hundred miles north of Budapest by the Danube River. And things go it shit almost immediately. See, what happened was-"

-….-….-…-

For everything being different now, things stayed remarkably the same.

After making them grovel for a good long while, Jane finally consented to attend some conference in Iceland in a few weeks. Darcy, as her ever faithful assistant would be joining her.

Natasha managed to stick around the compound for a few days before she was called in for something or rather in Europe.

They text when they can but it kind of sucks being apart.

(The night Darcy finished the coding, she called Natasha. It was 3 A.M. but Black Widow answers anyway and they talk for hours. "I- I don't even really know how I did this. It's fricken crazy. But I think it might also, like, be perfect." "I knew you would do it, **Зайка,"** "The thing is, I think I'm going to need your help. Getting it to him. I wanted to give it to him before we left but it just wasn't finished and-" " **Зайка, I'll take care of it."** )

It's only five days later that everything really goes to shit again and the Avengers fall apart.


	10. Chapter 10

"I am sorry." Natasha said stiffly.

The words were always uncomfortable when they actually came from her.

"I know."

The words were tight and Natasha's eyes were drawn to the lines of his tense shoulders. He didn't sound particularly forgiving but Natasha hadn't expected that he would.

Holding back a sigh she took a step forward towards Tony.

She made the extra effort to force her voice to sound as sincere as she truly felt. "I agree with you- about the Accords. They need work, but we both know that." She stepped closer, coming around to see his face. "I _agree_ with you. But Steve didn't make this about the Accords. He made it about Bucky."

She shook her head slightly in frustration.

She knew why Steve had done it. Understood that for Steve, Bucky took precedent. Like Clint always would for her. ( _She had thought they were moving beyond that. That they could all become each other's Clints' and Buckys'...too late now_.) What hurt was that he had put her in a position where she'd had to choose. That he had dragged other people into the mess claiming it was about the Accords when it wasn't. Not really. Not for him.

And after Clint and New York, after all the things she herself had gone through, how could she not have sided with Steve in that moment? Because when he had been fleeing- it had been about protecting Bucky. She had let him go for that. Let him rip the last dangling threads of her new family apart...( _Siberia, the fragmented footage she had seen from there. Family should not betray each other like that...later_. _Worry about it later_. _Vengeance is patience_.)

She watched the tick in Tony's jaw twitch and resisted the sudden urge to put a hand on his shoulder. Stepping back a bit she turned to stare out the window and really did sigh this time. She understood Steve, but she also understood Tony's anger. In fact, she was rather surprised by his clemency. She knew now for certain that she was a far crueler creature than Tony- she would have been hunting them even now to destroy them.

The man shifted and stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I guess you're going then." He said after a few moments of silence. His voice was aching tired.

"There are things I need to take care of." She confirmed, watching him through her periphery.

She needed new covers, new safe houses, and new contacts. Things she had put off after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. to chase after the Winter Soldier. She needed to check in with Laura, fix things with Clint ( _Beat his head in until he haw sense_.) Bathe herself clean of their broken family.

Natasha felt...dry. Wrung out.

After everything, it had all fallen apart again. Just as gut wrenchingly painful as the other million times her world had shattered into razor sharp pieces. (This time was worse. Maybe. Definitely.) She had tried so hard to hold with this one too. Tried desperately to hold the pieces together. But it had slipped through her fingers, just like all the times before. ( _Madame would have been disappointed- Don't think about that_.)

And yet, perhaps not…

Natasha's fingers tightened around the dangling chain she gripped behind her back.

This time…

"We are used to the world falling apart. You and I." She said softly, "But at least this time we have more than what we started with."

Tony grunted sharply in disagreement. "Oh, do we?" he asked darkly.

She turned to look at him again and let the chain dangle freely between her fingers as she held it out. The tiny crocheted Iron Man swung merrily from the end. It glinted in the light and looked to her like something worth holding on to.

Stark took it gently from her grasp. "I thought I told her I wanted a beanie." He said in a fairly good imitation of his usual snark.

Natasha shrugged. "You only paid her in half a beagle so she took creative license with your commission."

The man gave it a considering look before stuffing the little Iron Man into his pocket. "She would." He muttered, eyes gazing out the window.

Natasha took a deep silent breath.

"They're going to be coming for you." Stark told her suddenly.

Natasha gave him a look.

"I'm not the one who needs to watch their back." She warned.

Then she turned and walked away. Left behind one of the few people in the world she had ever underestimated. He would need to be careful- swimming with sharks like Ross. Part of her wanted to stay. (A larger part than she could admit.) The man had no experience with infiltration or undercover work. But Stark...Tony, was a genius. Natasha would have to trust him to look after himself.

 _Nothing stays forever_ , she reminded herself.

There was work she had to do.

Natasha swung her duffle bag over her shoulder. The familiar weight of its contents tapped against her as she flipped off the lights to her room and closed the door behind her. She didn't glace back and by the time she slid into the nondescript blue car she had waiting for her, Natasha's burner cell buzzed. Stark must have found the USB Darcy had hidden inside the key chain. She left the phone there on the passenger seat as she pulled out onto the curb.

Staying together was more important than how they stayed together after all.

-….-….-…-

Many hours of driving and two plane flights away, Nadia waved charmingly at her neighbors as she jiggled the key into the familiar lock. Her bag, filled with camping gear, rested at her feet. Nadia was friends with all her neighbors although she didn't see them often. She worked as a flight attendant and was therefore rarely home. Even when she managed to snag a few days' vacation she often chose to go camping instead of home, get away from all the hustle and bustle.

Nadia was young and flighty.

Nadia was perfectly comfortable around civilians.

Nadia also had a new girlfriend that she worried about. Her job meant that they would have to be apart for many months. Not only that, but being constantly on-call and up in the air meant that they would have little chance to call or even text each other. She hoped it wouldn't be too long before they are able to see each other again….that she would wait for Nadia to catch up…

(The best lies always have an element of truth to them.)

Door finally open, she hefted her bag inside and flicked on the light.

She locked the door securely behind her.

Nadia removed her comfortable hiking shoes and left them neatly on the entrance mat. She threw her luggage on the couch. Exhausted, she headed straight for the bathroom to splash water on her face and then tucked herself into the slightly lumpy bed.

Nadia dreams of Natasha...

-….-….-…-

Natasha doesn't hate civilians.

It's just that she doesn't know how to be around them.

It isn't a problem on Ops because she isn't herself on Ops. She isn't herself most of the time.

She's been unmade and remade so many times. Shattered and compressed until she is something newer, colder, deadlier each time. She knows the things that she'd done. Accepts that for many, she will never be able to scrub herself clean. She did what she did. Was who she was.

Whatever family the Red Room had pried her from, it meant nothing too her. Whoever that child had been, whatever future had been in store, she had never known it. Even when she had left the Red Room less then ash behind her, she had not thought to go chasing that life. She'd been shadow at the time. Less than even that. And underneath the nothing had only been more nothing. As anyone and everyone, she lured men and women, young and old, into her embraces and shred them without care for anyone willing to pay. Until her hands had been stained the deepest of violent reds.

It had taken years and years before she had run herself dry. Until her long stone heart began to _ache_ when she watched friends and family hug each other on the streets. Until a naïve idiot corners her and is stupid enough to say, "I never finished introducing myself last time, I'm Clint." With blood pouring from his nose and an arrow aimed steadily at her heart. Until she wants to _be_ someone.

Natasha is focused on simply trying to find out who she is now.

Whoever that is, this _Natasha_ , she doesn't know how to be around civilians.

When a dark haired brunette dressed in leggings and a long comfortable sweater, who Natasha instantly identifies as one Darcy Lewis, interrupts her reading time, Natasha is fairly irritated. She's been running around the world, digging up old contacts and treading haunted grounds to try and help Steve find his friend. She doesn't often get time away to sit in the quiet and read some trashy romance novel; to come down from the Adrenalin and the stress.

Natasha finds Darcy Lewis irritating.

But Clint likes her.

He's charmed by her attitude and her kindness.

Natasha doesn't trust easily. How can she trust anyone when she can't trust herself?

It takes her awhile to realize that Darcy doesn't see her as an assassin. She sees Natasha as an _Avenger_ \- As a hero. The name Black Widow means something very different to this woman, to the rest of the world, now.

So Natasha does the things she knows best. She does reconnaissance.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had some files on Darcy Lewis that she is able to read through. Lower middle class back ground, raised primarily by her grandmother, average grades and an average life until her internship with Jane Foster. There is a few notes on her hacking abilities which is interesting but not much else.

Unsatisfied, she watches the woman's interactions with others.

Natasha spends a little more time in the kitchen.

Darcy is intimidated by her, Natasha would have considered her a fool if she hadn't been, but it fades relatively quickly. The brunette always quick to bounce back and return, each time bearing more tempting foods. When Natasha shows even the slightest hints of interest in something, the woman changes course to fit that taste. It would be pitifully amusing if it weren't also so touching.

(Enjoyment had never been a part of food for her. Even a few years ago, would she ever have tried to consider what she herself enjoyed eating? Eat what you eat to survive and complete the mission- it had never mattered before if it was caviar or dirt.)

Darcy wonders her way into the life of a spy and assassin as though it were no strange thing.

It takes her awhile but Natasha catches up with herself. She likes Darcy Lewis. Finds her witty and…kind.

She thinks Darcy is perhaps her second friend.

She doesn't quite understand the obsession Darcy formulated in Stark's A.I. but her comments resharpens the Widows eyes. Natasha does more reconnaissance. Digs into financials and charities. She watches interactions closer and with clearer eyes. She sees the edges of the mask that she had missed, the charade that buried him under layers of himself. He deflects with grandeur and disbelieved narcissism. He purposely picks fights with Steve, pushes War Machine away, and isolates himself when emotionally compromised. It is a mask that he himself almost believes. She had missed it. Natasha, who knows better than perhaps anyone how masks can _seep_.

( _'Tony Stark- Not recommended.' Like she herself had ever been. Sloppy…regretful._ )

But Darcy had.

Darcy had noticed what Natasha had missed...was even working to fix the problem.

It is not often that the Black Widow misses something. It is unheard of for a civilian to see what she does not.

Natasha is...interested.

Clint is unbearably smug when he realizes she has realized what he knew weeks previously. (Because of course he catches on. He knows her better than she knows herself.) Natasha is forced to make a point in their next sparing session and wipe him to the floor repeatedly and thoroughly.

And there is another strange thing, because most people assume she and Clint are involved. That if they aren't in a romantic relationship, they are at least having sex. This is of course, a rumor Natasha purposely encourages. If people assume the greatest weakness for the Black Widow and Hawkeye are each other, it keeps them from looking for other more vulnerable targets (Laura). But Darcy never suggests she thinks Natasha and Clint are anything other than the closest of friends- which is accurate and a little disconcerting.

(Impressive)

The more time Natasha spends around the woman, the more Natasha _wants_.

Darcy gives her a handmade beanie and asks for nothing in return.

It's not the first gift Natasha has ever received. She has had hundreds of gifts of the years; usual expensive jewelry from marks, the occasional weapon from Clint or S.H.E.I.L.D. But it is the first _good_ thing Natasha has ever owned that was crafted for her. It's soft and plush and small and inconspicuous enough that she can take it with her on missions. Natasha wears a black knit beanie while she runs around Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Somalia, and Nepal.

On site she wears slightly lower cut tops and tighter pants. Natasha is a beautiful woman. She knows this. It is how the Black Widow works after all. It is a strength she has always been able to depend on.

Darcy Lewis doesn't notice.

(It was both refreshing and frustrating.)

The hunt for the Winter Soldier runs cold (as Natasha had suspected it might.)

Natasha wants Darcy Lewis.

Clint's advice, not asked for but obnoxiously given when she joins him at the farm for dinner with the family, is that she should be clear in her interest but not 'pushy'. Civilians are complicated and delicate.

Following Clint's advice is more difficult then first imagined. For one Natasha is not used to having to expose herself (her _real_ self) in such a way. For another, nothing Natasha actually is comfortable doing seems to communicate to Darcy her interest. So she goes to the extreme; she tries a towel. Meticulously placed, wrapped tight in the front to accentuate her bust, opening running up her thigh.

When that fails Natasha decides she must reevaluate.

Perhaps she had read Darcy wrong. Such a thing doesn't happen often but her recent insight that she had misjudged Tony Stark of all people makes her believe it may be a possibility. (Maybe she's going soft. Soft and dull like an old blade. She thinks perhaps this might even be okay for the family she has found). It is possible, she concedes, that Darcy isn't gay. That she wasn't interested in woman. Or that she just wasn't interested in Natasha.

Then Darcy invites her out.

She can tell the though put into it and she is…touched. They work so well together too.

Determined to get a straight answer once and for all, she drags Darcy back to her sanctuary. Her room.

And it all comes out. It is easier, sometimes, to be straightforward. They lay together on her bed and it's…comfortable. It's not how she thought it would be; there is no warm groping, no joining of hot mouths and sweaty bodies. But it is warm and peaceful and Natasha feels her constantly tense muscles relaxing. It feels…intimate. She wraps her arms around Darcy's waist and breaths her floral scented shampoo and feels like everything was worth it to find this.

When she wakes in the early morning, she grazes down at Darcy's lightly snoring face, and sneaks a hand into the cold and grabs her phone.

Opening Google she begins her research- typing 'Asexual'.

She's not going to let what this could be slip away.

-….-….-…-

Several months later, after Darcy and Jane go north to Iceland following some radiation in the stars, after a building explodes in Lagos and the Sokovia accords tear the Avengers apart…after it all, Darcy sits in her hotel room watching Netflix on her laptop. Jane was fast asleep down the hall but Darcy was up waiting…

She checked the time at the bottom corner of the screen, frowned, checked her phone, and then switched from Netflix to Youtube for some quality unlikely animal friend videos. Her mind was on their last text conversation, eight days ago now although it felt like a lot longer than that.

N: You were right about Stark. (3:51 A.M.)

D: And?

N: Hes having me go under. I'll be there when I can. Have a few things left to take care of first. (3:54 A.M.)

Despite her best efforts Darcy's eyes began to sag.

She pinched her arm and was about to go splash water on her face when a knock came from the door. Darcy grabbed her taser from the nightstand and stuffed it in her back pocket. Then she inched her way to the door, heart pounding, to peak through the little spy-hole.

A blonde woman shifted uneasily on her feet.

Darcy threw open the obnoxiously heavy door with a broad grin.

Natasha stood in the fluorescent lit hall, dressed in casual civilian clothes, her hair dyed blonde and cut short again. The blue eyes had to be colored contacts but it was a little strange to see on Natasha's familiar face. She was almost unrecognizable. The woman smiled almost uncertainly at Darcy, gripping a large duffle bag. "Miss me?"

Darcy linked their hands and pulled her inside. "Tell me everything." She demanded.

"Tony says 'thanks for Friday'." Natasha replied in relief, tension in her shoulders bleeding away.

The door slid closed behind her.

THE END

* * *

Well, that's it. I can't believe it. My first ever finished fanfiction. Thank you all so much for all your views and comments. I hope you have all enjoyed the ride. I might work on something else taking place in this 'universe' later but for now...Thank you and Goodnight!


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